Newly released court documents show that Wisconsin Governor, and GOP rising star, Scott Walker may be in very, very hot water.

Courtesy of the AP: 

Newly released court documents include excerpts from emails showing that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's recall election campaign team told him to instruct donors to give to a key conservative group that would run ads for Walker and distribute money to other conservative groups backing him. 

The documents released Friday by a federal appeals court also show that prosecutors believe Walker personally solicited donations for conservative group Wisconsin Club for Growth to get around campaign finance limits and disclosure requirements as he fended off the recall attempt in 2012. 

Aides told Walker to tell donors that they could make unlimited donations to Wisconsin Club for Growth without having the gifts publicly disclosed. Wisconsin Club for Growth then funneled the money to other conservative groups that advertised on Walker's behalf. 

"As the Governor discussed ... he wants all the issue advocacy efforts run thru one group to ensure correct messaging," Walker fundraiser Kate Doner wrote to campaign adviser R.J. Johnson in April 2011, a little more than a year before the recall election. "We had some past problems with multiple groups doing work on 'behalf' of Gov. Walker and it caused some issues ... the Governor is encouraging all to invest in the Wisconsin Club for Growth." 

It's not clear whether Walker followed the instructions from his team. But the documents say millions of dollars later moved from donors he was set to speak with to Wisconsin Club for Growth, which in turn funded groups backing Walker in the recall election.

The documents are part of a secret investigation into whether Walker illegally coordinated with conservative groups and fundraisers in the run up to the 2012 recall election.

According to these documents it appears that he did just that.

I think my new favorite song when reporting on the Republican party is this one by Queen.

Dirty tricks abound in Wisconsin recall election. Shocking, I know. Update: Walker survives recall!

Courtesy of Salon:  

With both sides counting on dramatic turnout, Tom Barrett’s campaign is charging Scott Walker supporters with dirty tricks. In an e-mail sent to supporters last night, Barrett for Wisconsin Finance Director Mary Urbina-McCarthy wrote, “Reports coming into our call center have confirmed that Walker’s allies just launched a massive wave of voter suppression calls to recall petition signers.” According to Urbina-McCarthy, the message of the calls was: “If you signed the recall petition, your job is done and you don’t need to vote on Tuesday.” 

Last night I talked to a Wisconsin voter who says she received just such a robo-call. Carol Gibbons told me she picked up the phone and heard a male voice saying “thank you for taking this call,” and that “if you signed the recall petition, you did not have to vote because that would be your vote.” After hearing the vote-suppressing message, said Gibbons, “I wanted to take the phone and throw it in the middle of the road.” Gibbons is a retired public employee and a staunch Walker opponent. If he wins the recall, she warned, “He’s going to roll over us like pieces of dirt. He’s going to say, ‘They voted for me twice – I can do whatever I want.’”

As usual the Republicans cannot win an honest election and so they find themselves desperately resorting to the dirtiest tricks imaginable in order to hold onto power.

This has been described as possibly the second most important election of 2012, second only to President Obama's reelection, and I tend to agree.

Let's send all of our good wishes to Wisconsin today and hope for a tremendous Democratic voter turnout because it is time to send a message to the Koch brothers and their fellow corporate pals that democracy in America is NOT for sale to the highest bidder and that the people still matter and are, at least today, STILL in charge of their country.

P.S. You can all treat this as an open thread and to provide updates as they come in throughout the day, though yes I am well aware that we may NOT know the ultimate victor until later this week.

Update: Both MSNBC and Fox News are calling the election for Walker.

I am right now watching Palin on Greta's show taking her victory lap, and It is making me nauseous.

So now we know just how dramatically the Citizen's United decision will affect our democracy going forward, and it should send a shiver up the spine of EVERY American voter. If there is no legislation introduced that changes the disparity that now exists between the corporate masters financing the GOP and the everyday people sending their hard earned money to finance the Democrats, our democracy ends.

Right now I am not sure how much we can do, or how fast we can do it, but I guess here is as good of a place to start as any.

Long time Palin family friend faces first ever recall effort in Wasilla.

Courtesy of the Frontiersman:

Steve Menard moved another step closer to making history as the first city council member to face a recall vote. 

A petition asking Wasilla voters to oust the two-time councilman was turned in Monday at Wasilla City Hall about three and a half hours ahead of a 5 p.m. deadline. The petition, which has 284 signatures, says Menard’s behavior at a Sitka hotel room while on city business in August rises to the level of official misconduct in office. 

If the petition has at least the required 201 valid signatures of registered city voters, it would be the first time a recall effort of a Wasilla official would be decided by an election, City Clerk Kristie Smithers said. In 14 years as city clerk, Smithers said she hasn’t seen a recall effort make it as far as Menard’s. 

The recall effort, spearheaded by the local Conservative Patriots Group, is in response to Menard’s actions while attending the summer Alaska Municipal League meetings. When he went to check out after a three-day stay at the Westmark Sitka, the hotel discovered extensive damage to his room and charged the city $350 for cleaning. 

An itemized bill from the hotel to the city lists damage that included two mattresses and a chair had been urinated on, a burned mattress and vomit on the carpet. After Wasilla City Council met in a 50-minute executive session after the trip to discuss Menard’s behavior, the councilman agreed to repay the entire cost of his trip, about $1,400, and was restricted from traveling on city business in the future. 

Although Menard also apologized and acknowledged a longtime problem with alcohol, that he continues as a city councilman is unacceptable, said Jennie Bettine, CEO for Conservative Patriots Group. The group hoped Menard would resign, and when he didn’t, felt compelled to act. 

“We had hoped he would have been man enough to man up and say, ‘I did something wrong and the people who voted for me shouldn’t have to put up with this,’” she said after CPG first submitted its petition application. “He did not choose to do that. … He should really just resign and not put the city through this.” 

By the way the Conservative Patriots Group is a local group of Teabaggers that you would normally assume would have the back of one of the Grizzled Mama's longtime family friends.  I guess urinating and vomiting all over hotel rooms and charging the town for the cost is where they draw the line.

Besides being close friends of the Palins little Stevie's mother, Linda Menard, is also a State Senator, but simply does not have the influence to protect her little boy from his own stupidity and weakness.

"Citizens for a Better Arizona" saddles up to form a "posse" to challenge racist icon Sheriff Joe Arapaio. Yeehaw!

Courtesy of the Washington Times:

The same Arizona group that took down the state’s leading immigration hard-liner is now gunning for its best-known lawman. 

Fresh off a successful drive to oust Republican state Senate President Russell Pearce this month, leaders of Citizens for a Better Arizona announced this week that they plan to form a “citizens posse” to challenge Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in his 2012 re-election bid. Sheriff Arpaio, who has carved out a national reputation for his no-nonsense treatment of lawbreakers in his county and for his running battles with the Obama administration and immigration advocates, is serving his fifth four-year term. 

The group also is considering a recall election against Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, although organizers said they will do so only if at least 5,000 volunteers sign up online to circulate petitions. 

“The main focus right now is Joe Arpaio. We’re looking at a bunch of different options to get rid of him,” said Chad Snow, chairman of Citizens for a Better Arizona. 

The targeting of Sheriff Arpaio is the latest salvo in the state’s fierce political wars over the immigration issue. Both Mr. Pearce, who lost a recall election Nov. 8, and Sheriff Arpaio are known far beyond Arizona’s borders for their opposition to illegal immigration and efforts to tighten border security.

In my opinion this is WAY overdue. This guys is NOTHING but a huge embarrassment to the good people of Arizona.

Arizona deserves to have far better representation than Arpaio, Brewer, and that old guy who chose the Alaskan lunatic for his running mate.  Clearly they are all unfit for office, and not JUST because each of them has been a Sarah Palin supporter either.

Though of course THAT does not exactly help their cause either.

The rhetoric from the Teabaggers in Wisconsin has gone from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Courtesy of Politico:

"I will tell you ladies and gentlemen, I detest and despise everything the left stands for. How anybody can endorse and embrace an ideology that has killed a billion people in the last century is beyond me," said Tea Party Nation CEO Judson Phillips.

Phillips, who a day prior likened protesters of Gov. Scott Walker to Nazi storm troopers, urged a few hundred tea party supporters to turn out for state Sen. Alberta Darling, who is in a ferocious battle with state Rep. Sandy Pasch to hold onto her suburban Milwaukee seat.

Something about me that you may not know is that I can be terribly forgetful.


However I am PRETTY sure that if I were involved with the killing of a billion people I would remember it.

I am going to assume that this jackass is comparing the American Left Wing to the Chinese and Soviet  Communists, and then I will further assume that the Teabagger's ongoing struggle with mathematics explains that ridiculously inflated number. (By the way if you wanted to know which ideology really HAD killed almost a billion people, I am afraid you would have to look to religion. But of course I would say that, I am a Godless liberal.)

Which means in just that one sentence this idiot has demonstrated his lack of a competent understanding for history, politics, as well as mathematics. And THESE are the people jerking the choke chain controlling the Republican party?

By the way, just in case you think I am being too judgmental concerning the intellectual prowess of our anti-education, pro-Constitution (Before they added all of those troublesome Amendments), Bagger buddies, perhaps you have not yet seen what was written on the side of the bus that they drove to Wisconsin.

Now I only attended public schools, so you will have to forgive me, but WE were never taught to spell September that way. (Psst, it's up at the top of the bus.)

Come on Wisconsin Democrats, you can't let these idiots win the day now can you?

Results of our poll "What should Alaskans do when Sarah Palin returns to our state?"

So the results of the poll were as follows:

"Welcome her with open arms and thank her for bringing so much attention to our state". 25 votes,

"Start a recall petition". 134 votes.

"Pressure our legislators to impeach her". 114 votes.

"Let her finish out her term and then vote her out in the next election". 63 votes.

I do believe that based on this poll, as well as those on numerous other Alaska blogs, we have ourselves a mandate.