The specifics of Scott Walker’s aides’ campaign-related malfeasance — SecretRouterGate? PrivateNetworkGate? — don’t exactly trip off the tongue:
Even as Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin looks ahead to 2016 and a possible presidential bid, his political past as Milwaukee County executive has come back to haunt him.
A release of 27,000 emails and hundreds of court documents on Wednesday portrays Mr. Walker, a Republican, as having presided over an office where aides used personal computers and email to conceal that they were mixing government and campaign business. The conduct of campaign work on government time led to the criminal convictions of two aides and several others. Mr. Walker, who has for years denied wrongdoing, was never charged….
On the other hand, details like this are considerably more attention-getting:
The dump of 27,000 emails related to investigations swirling around Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has resulted in the shocking revelation that he employed your crazy racist Uncle Norval, the one with the AOL address who makes everyone uncomfortable on Thanksgiving. Among the cache, which Walker’s staff forwarded using personal email addresses, a failed attempt to avoid detection, is one depicting President Obama as an “acorn cap with the nut still attached,” and also smoking a cigarette, like evil people do. The others are worse, and even less funny!…
This is, of course, not the first time GOP officeholders have manage to spoil a sweet gig by letting their inner bigot off the chain. Is it really so necessary to share lulz beginning “This morning I went to sign my dogs up for welfare… “ during company hours, on (sekrit) civil-service networks? Well, maybe — if you consider such lulz as in-group identifiers, a means of proving that one hates all the right enemies…
ruemara
I’m a guv emp. I spent as much time as possible learning what that meant. It’s like Chris Christie’s minions taking the 5th-what is it about public serve=public records=you cannot do this, you morons, that is so hard?
Hill Dweller
Ohio Republicans just passed a massive voter suppression bill, but it got little attention nationally. Since 2010 the Republican party has waged the largest voter suppression campaign since Jim Crowe, but the Village doesn’t give a shit.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Hill Dweller: Of course the Village doesn’t give a shit. No one they know will be adversely affected by the new disenfranchisement efforts.
fedupwithhypocrisy
As Kay Steiger via Daniel Strauss at TPM asked, “Is Scott Walker’s secret email club his Troopergate?” works for me
piratedan
@Hill Dweller: well considering the AZ Lege has sent a bill to the Capitol for signature that allows any business owner to refuse to serve anyone if it’s against “their religion”, so we’re legalizing discrimination here where all you got is voter disenfranchisement…. Cactus Barbie has yet to sign it though and I’m sure your law will get a court challenge.
Thanks to Republican state legislators everywhere, we have a race to the bottom and it appears that there are backhoes aplenty….
RuhRow_Gyro
I kind of like feeling uncomfortable. Its naughty.
Punchy
@piratedan: They tried this in KS and the state Senate bounced it. My thoughts are that the first busines that attempts to reject person based on SkyJeebus will be social media’d into complete shame and near-boycott. Any bidnass that attempts this is a non-bidnass within 6 months, IMO.
Calming Influence
goggle-eyed homunculusgate.
seaboogie
OT, but props to you AL for being up at all hours day and night keeping this blog slogging onward, and having great good humor and tenacity, even in the face of a few contentious detractors who only comment occasionally with snark, and don’t bear a FP burden. You keep us on the west coast happy when we hit the “refresh” button.
piratedan
@Punchy: @efgoldman: I know guys, but yet, they keep passing this crap as if there’s some sort of unspoken contest in Red and Purple statehouses as to who can be the most egregious set of assholes. If only we could stop ourselves from persecuting these successful religious white people, why we’d have all of our problems solved in no time.
mouse tolliver
When I saw this reported on MSNBC I wanted to break something, seeing as how they just fired a guy for tweeting that “some” people on the right are racist. Here it is in their own reporting — proof that some people on the right are extremely racist. How sad is it that a news network fired somebody for telling the truth?
Omnes Omnibus
Yeah, corruption is really hard to say.
Ian
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Gotta keep those elections close so we can play horse race.
Besides, those people, arn’t the kind of good Americans who buy the village media.
Chris
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Wait, you’re saying they DON’T have black friends after all? D: D: D:
MikeJ
Remember when reporters talking to each other via email was supposed to be a big scandal?
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
Heck, all it will take is one or two cab drivers refusing to take fares who have a dog with them. Because even the Arizona legislature is just bright enough to realize they can’t put a “Only Applies to Christians” clause in the law.
Yatsuno
@MikeJ: Ahh. Good times. Gooood times.
AKA IOKIYAR. Especially a Koch-sucker.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
Douchegate.
seaboogie
@efgoldman: Insomniac + literate = Blogger? Cole would know.
Roger Moore
@seaboogie:
Do you consider Cole literate?
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: He can type. That is impressive for a tanker.
Suffern ACE
@fedupwithhypocrisy: Yeah. Troopergate! Now there was a scandal that totally destroyed a political career.
Joey Maloney
@Mnemosyne: Because even the Arizona legislature is just bright enough to realize they can’t put a “Only Applies to Christians” clause in the law.
Unlike their counterparts in Louisiana.
How about this: Voter registrar says, “It’s against my religion to facilitate voting by Democrats.” Perfect storm!
Mnemosyne
@Joey Maloney:
To be fair to Louisiana, they didn’t put an “Only Christians Need Apply” clause in the law. They were just shocked to find out that if they passed the law, it would also apply to non-Christian religions, because it had apparently never occurred to them that other religions exist.
ETA: My favorite comment was that Islam is a “government,” not a religion, so Muslims don’t get First Amendment protections. It’s particularly funny coming from a group that claims that the US is a Christian nation and the Constitution is based on the Bible — doesn’t that make Christianity a “government,” too?
seaboogie
@Roger Moore: We’re here, aren’t we? Ssshhhh…this is for Cole, he might not be sleeping. But yes, seriously so. Do you know a better forum?
Gex
@Punchy: My idea if this becomes law is to have straight allies dress and act in ways that conservative Christians think gays dress and act at establishments that take advantage of this new law. Then when they are refused service, these straight allies sue the establishment that refused to serve them. The law may allow them to discriminate against gay people because that conflicts with their religion, but it probably doesn’t allow them to discriminate against people who aren’t gay just because they have crappy gaydar.
Sue them. Repeatedly. Until they no longer trust their gaydar and they decide to stop refusing people or until they are sued out of business.
Joey Maloney
@Gex: I’m not sure that would give one a cause of action. Like SYG, this stupid law is based on the stupid feelings of stupid people. It wouldn’t matter if you weren’t in fact gay, as long as the stupid person thought you were.
Frankensteinbeck
@efgoldman:
I believe you have cut to the heart here. The Village seems stuck forty years ago, when it was understood that you should applaud ‘a black’ who rose above the drugs and violence and succeeded. They’re very uncomfortable that minorities may be gaining the power to demand real equality and not be sidekicks. There’s a lot of that among the center right, and it’s why Clint Eastwood (famous in Hollywood for his positive treatment of minorities) argued with an empty chair. I’m pretty sure it’s why the Villagers just could not believe that Obama got reelected. His initial election could make them feel like America was nice enough to elect a token black president. When he got reelected, that meant he couldn’t be put back in his place again. I noticed their shock on election night.
Baud
You misspelled Klan in the title, AL.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Gex:
That’s the fascinating bit. Do these Free-Market-Jebus botherers really think you can tell who is gay by how they dress?
WereBear
They are completely astonished when anyone who isn’t from Priscilla, Queen of the Desert turns out to be gay. Yes, they really think that gay people dress like a Pride Parade at all times.
And if they don’t, it is “not fair.”
jayackroyd
PacketGate
Aimai
@WereBear: well, this is also just a kind of statement law. The goal isn’t to deny service to any particular gay person or even large numbers of gay people. That would make the entire community look mean and ungenerous. What they enjoy, in advance, is what they see as the rebuke to generic forces of evil. The imagined chance to tell one flaming gay couple and the aclu to shove it. They will be shocked and hurt to be boycotted in their turn. They will be surprised to lose business from people since they think of themselves and tbeir motives as do pure.
gf120581
@WereBear: If that’s the case, no wonder homophobes are often so paranoid. There’re gay sleeper agents all around them, just waiting to strike!
“I thought Ellen Page was cute and now she’s a LESBIAN?! I WAS TRICKED!!!”
Lurking Canadian
@Mnemosyne: you can take a dog with you in a cab? I would have just assumed that was something cabbies could refuse, except for service dogs.
And what the hell is an “uncapped acorn”, or whatever the fuck? These days the dog whistles are pitched too high for me to hear them.
feebog
The ACLU will be all over this law. I watched “12 Years a Slave” yesterday and was struck with how the white plantation owners used scripture to justify their ownership and brutal treatment of slaves. How is the Arizona “law” any different?
On a somewhat lighter note, I am President of a very active Homeowners group in SoCal. We try to invite interesting guest speakers; last month it was our new City Attorney Mike Feuer, this month we had our new City Controller, Ron Galperin. Ron is openly gay, and is a true grassroots candidate who has never held public office before. We publish a newsletter every month and several members help with the final stages of folding and addressing. One of our members is 92 and perhaps the sweetest little old lady you can imagine. Fran still volunteers at her churche’s food bank and soup kitchen every week. She usually takes her copy of the newsletter home with her after our meeting, and this month was no exception. The next day she called and my wife answered the phone; Fran was concerned that we had a typo, because the bio for Ron said he lives in West Los Angeles with his husband Rahm. My wife had to break the news that our new City Controller was openly gay. Fran seemed to be ok with the explanation, in a “not that there is anything wrong with it” kind of way.
Point being of course that you can’t always tell who is gay and who isn’t, and I suspect a lot of these religious bigots have very a limited range of gaydar. What a clusterfuck this is going to be.