Cheesehead Governor Pwned?

Sure sounds real.

Scott Walker, Koch Puppet.

It’s worth listening almost to the end of Part Two, when he agrees with “Koch” that Mika Brzenzski is a “piece of ass” and compares himself to Reagan firing the air traffic controllers and thus scaring the Rooskis into caving on the Cold War.

@SanFranLefty:
He’s pretty much there being a brainless puppet of people way richer than he’ll ever be minus the hagiography.

It’s a day like today that I’m bummed that Keiff Oh isn’t still on the teevee. In any event, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s writers and producers must be wetting themselves with glee.

He looks like Dumbya’s beady-eyed, younger, meaner, stupider brother.

Cheddar Revolution Now.

@¡Andrew!: That was Bloggie’s theory, along with both of them showing classic signs of FAS.

@¡Andrew!:
he is actually the bastard child of Reagan and Glen Beck.

Obama will no longer defend DOMA. http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/February/11-ag-222.html

OMG. I just signed up for a protest tomorrow at Hinchey’s office. I will be there to bless the throng and divide up the loaves and kippers.

@TJ/ Jamie Sommers /TJ: That didn’t take long.

wow

Obama declares the DOMA unconstitutional, and orders the DOJ to stop defending it in court.

@TJ/ Jamie Sommers /TJ:

oops

@Capt Howdy: Wow. I wonder what the politics of this are.

Obama Will Not Defend Defense of Marriage Act
Jonathan Capehart: “A well-placed and trusted source tells me that, any minute now, Attorney General Eric Holder will issue a statement announcing that it will no longer defend so-called Defense of Marriage Act lawsuits in court. The source believes DOJ had come to the conclusion that heightened scrutiny would apply, and that these cases cannot be defended in court.”

politicalwire.com via FB

@redmanlaw: But Holder wouldn’t make this call on his own, would he?

This doesn’t really sound like a win, more like they’ve run out of two-faced, double-talking, specious legal bullshit for court:

We will, however, remain parties to the cases and continue to represent the interests of the United States throughout the litigation. I have informed Members of Congress of this decision, so Members who wish to defend the statute may pursue that option. The Department will also work closely with the courts to ensure that Congress has a full and fair opportunity to participate in pending litigation.

Section 3 of DOMA will continue to remain in effect unless Congress repeals it or there is a final judicial finding that strikes it down, and the President has informed me that the Executive Branch will continue to enforce the law.

@Dodgerblue:
I dont think he has any right wing friends to lose. I think most reasonable republicans have either moved beyond this or realize it is a loser politically.

@Dodgerblue: If you read the press release I linked to, Holder says the decision came from the President.

@TJ/ Jamie Sommers /TJ: . . . /she said with strained patience, tapping her foot with arms crossed.

/flees for Albuquerque, taking the left hand turn

“Hey, is there a Butz here? Seymour Butz? Hey, everybody, I wanna Seymour Butz!”

@redmanlaw: I been shamed.

Also also also, same-sex marriage is coming to a neighborhood state near you me!

@redmanlaw: @Dodgerblue:

/looks over the top of her glasses and sighs, then goes back to reading her book

Please, barristers in the house, help with this. The natural ethics of taking direction in the management of state affairs from a third party is pretty obvious. The people should know who is in the room with them and their representatives managing their business.

But is it a crime? Even if I agreed with Koch 110% and I was from Wisconsin, I’d feel a victim of a very clear form of treason.

Is this kind of unaccountable interference, influence and direction at any level illegal? If not so, is it legal only because no money has changed hands directly? Can a call be made that it’s a crime if Koch or some part of the Kocktopus funded Walker’s campaign? Gray area?

@FlyingChainSaw: I hold the unpopular view, unpopular even in my household, that the First Amendment does not permit any restrictions on political speech, including the funding of political campaigns. So, short of Agnew-style bribery, I don’t care who talks to this jerk.

@SanFranLefty:

“Koch: Beautiful; beautiful. You gotta love that Mika Brzezinski; she’s a real piece of ass.”

I am not worthy.

@FlyingChainSaw: Not even close. Walker’s free to take calls from whomever he wants.

However…

While not a legal issue, it’s clearly a political one. You don’t want to be caught on tape giving a blowjob to your master.

@Dodgerblue: No it’s not the communications – it’s the accounting for it, like in lobbying law. Not that it doesn’t fix anything but regulations on record keeping, etc allows stakeholders to call out the interest that is unwholesomely or perhaps illegally directing legislation.

Would it change things to assume, which I think is true, that Walker got Kochtopus money?

@FlyingChainSaw: @Dodgerblue: @nojo: The bit where “Koch” offers to fly Walker out to “Cali” and show him a good time and Walker replies “That would be outstanding” has to be skating pretty close to the ethical rules for elected officials. Not straight out quid pro quo, but definitely incentive/reward for performing.

@FlyingChainSaw:
A lot of Kochtopus dough ended up in Walker’s accounts. He was the 2nd or 3rd most popular Koch bottom.

@ManchuCandidate: That is true. OK, that’s the thing. I dunno. You take their money, yeah, that changes things and makes you subject to a whole raft of ethical regulation.

@Mistress Cynica:
Yeah, too casual to call a bribe maybe, but quite open to question against law and regulation. Cripes, I’ve had people in middle ranks of Justice who, for their topic expertise in a really inside-baseball, no-one-could-care subject, that I wanted on the board of a non-profit and, oh boy, even with zero money involved an absolute no go. Another one, I have to design board agendas to let the government people leave the room because their might be discussion of enterprise budgeting and expenditure. They do take it seriously and hold up their hand and say they can’t go any further when they bump up against the money and ethics thing. One of the Justice guys, I have to insist ‘This is for *you*” when I am in town and want to buy him a lunch or something.

I’ll take DodgerBlue’s counsel with all due gravity but I can’t believe this is all unquestionable under common association and dialog.

Any indictments under any relevant laws would be at least as valid as the ones the FBI uses when they sting child abusers who show up to meet with 9-year olds who happen to turn out to be 40-year old agents.

Dang, I can’t help but feel they stopped and popped and published too soon. They should have interrogated ethics laws and set him up in a sting that would have described a clear and indictable violation and gone to press arguing for indictment, citing sting operations against child abusers that yield potent and actionable charges. You can’t wing the king. You need to pin him against the wall with a Gatling Gun and empty the belt.

@FlyingChainSaw: Unlike Dodger, I don’t think that the First Amendment gives corporations and oligarchs the right to bribe buy give unlimited campaign funds to politicians.
@Mistress Cynica: Who knew you could buy off a Midwestern governor with a trip to Disneyland and Legoland? Or were they going to go to the West Hollywood bondage clubs with the rest of the RNC?

@FlyingChainSaw: The real problem is that no one (with authority) cares. They’re all whores for the same group of super-rich people, and it’s obvious now that the sadistic, neo-fascist, white-wing trash that stabs the “R” button on the Diebold SUX 5000 would rather see the whole country fail–even if it takes them down with us.

The right-wing propaganda in this country is so amateurish, ludicrous and poorly executed that only the totally insane or the aggressively stupid would actually believe it. And yet, here we are. If the Krotch-fuckahs say that working people are the enemy, then that’s all it takes.

@¡Andrew!: Mostly true most of the time but in this confrontation, unions are a proxy for the Obama Administration. The question then becomes do they have the guts to take on Walker and the Kochtopus over the issue.

@SanFranLefty: I can see both sides of it. What I am trying to see if this kind of communication is protected both from limitation and observation. Clearly the fucking twit was taking instruction and encouragement from his boss and patron. Taking that instruction and acting on it, after he has taken his front group’s money, and not disclosing the communication, that, that I think offends at least the spirit of a lot of ethics laws. Not that I have a lot of experience with it other than being surprised at the shackles that friends in the civil service have to negotiate to help out little non-profit groups trying to help the general public.

@FlyingChainSaw: I think the Gatling gun, the first real “machine gun”, was fed from a stick magazine up top. Belts came along later.

So this band Arcade Fire is coming to town in a small venue. Go/no go? All I know about their music is that “ahhh ahhh ahhh” tune Dan Patrick plays on his sport talk show and that they opened several shows for U2 in the last couple of years. Someone called The Fray will be opening for them when we see them in Denver in May.

@redmanlaw: Never heard of either of them. This electric stuff?

Hey, all I know about guns I learned watching a few episodes of Wild Wild West reruns.

@redmanlaw: Who Is Arcade Fire??!!?

In all seriousness, they’re great. My second favorite Canadian musical collective after New Pornographers (Broken Social Scene is third — I think they were better before Feist went solo).

@redmanlaw: do the Drive By Truckers have many fans out west?

has any one found it ironic that the wisconsin governers last name is also w’s middle name? maybe the walkers of the world who aren’t idiots will have to start calling themselves: walker-non idiot. this thought just came to me. walker-texas ranger, chuck norris. i feel so sorry for the rest of the walkers. what a terrible stereotype to live down.