Walker on foreclosure settlement: I coulda used it all

Okay, nobody actually said that, but Wisconsin will receive $141 million as part of a foreclosure fraud settlement with five of the country's biggest banks, of which $31.6 million is to go directly to the state. Good thing it wasn't the whole $141 million: Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, whose office has control of the money, has made the decision, in consultation with Governor Scott Walker, that exactly none of that $31.6 million will go to actually compensate homeowners. The plan is that most of the money - $25.6 million - will be used to finger the gushing dike of the Walker "budget" (currently in arrears about $143 million, $208 million by the end of the biennium in 2013, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau).  The remaining $6 million will be "retained by the Department of Justice to be allocated at a later date."

What can you even say about douche-baggery of this magnitude? Here's Scooter's take:

“Just like communities and individuals have been affected, the foreclosure crisis has had an effect on the state of Wisconsin, in terms of unemployment. … This will offset that damage done to the state of Wisconsin,” Walker said [jsonline].

Leaves you gasping for breath, doesn't it?

Credit: Pokeracademy.co.uk

Boy Scouts court martial Scott Walker

MADISON — In a surprise move yesterday, the Boy Scouts of America announced they will begin court martial proceedings against Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin.The ultimate goal of the court martial, according to a Boy Scout press release, is to strip Walker of his Eagle Scout rank and "bust him all the way back to cleaning latrines. Really nasty latrines." The Scouts went on to say that the charges against Walker stem from his basic dishonesty, a callous disregard for "those of us who most need a helping hand," and generally giving a potful of public money to private individuals who don't need it.

"Scott Walker no longer personifies the Boy Scout ideal," the release concluded. "He will be stripped of his insignia, rank, and uniform, then marched to the nearest public toilet to begin his new Scouting assignment."

Walker spokesperson Cullen Werwie declined comment on the matter, claiming he was on his way to a singing engagement at the Federal Building in Milwaukee and had to save his voice. (Werwie has been granted immunity in a John Doe investigation into irregularities during Walker's recent campaign for the Governor's post. The probe is being conducted by Milwaukee County DA John Chisolm.)

Wisconsin State Assembly to debate whether they should govern at all

Photo: TPM

In a stunning and courageous move, Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald introduced legislation, bill number AB-000a, nicknamed "Government: So Over" today. In a press release this afternoon, Fitzgerald urged Wisconsinites to pay no attention, go shopping or something.

While little is known of the actual language in the bill, sources close to the Speaker confirm that the bill would essentially repeal Wisconsin's constitutional government and create a quasi-public-private-amorphous entity called WisProfit to run the state as a for-profit corporation in its place.

"It's my dream," Fitzgerald said at a presser in the Assembly chamber late today. "I want to repeal my own job, then go to work for WisProfit. Sweet."

Jobsturbation

jobs·tur·ba·tion
noun, "jōbs-tər-bā-shən"

stroking of the 1% believing they'll pop for a few jobs, pastime of Republican legislators and tea party governors.

Scott Walker in New York to combat out-of-state funds with out-of-state funds

Walker's campaign is allowed to raise unlimited funds to compensate for bearing the cost of verifying signatures in a recall election. Big Apple Scotty has deemed that Badger taxpayers now cover that cost, while he continues to raise unlimited dollars from unaccountable sources. Unaccountable out of state sources interested in purchasing influence here.

The sound of that much money can be soooooo sexy. The recall, I suspect, might be a little more like a rodeo than a horse-race. The bull doesn't give a shit how much money you have.

Via Uppity Wisconsin.

Tim Cullen to run against Walker? Is that dog blue?

I read yesterday on Uppity Wisconsin that Tommy Thompson is endorsing Democrat Tim Cullen to run against Scott Walker in the upcoming recall election. Couple comments:

• Walker spoke highly of Cullen in the phone call with blogger Ian Murphy posing as David Koch;
  
• Cullen served in the Thompson administration as head of Health and Human Services;
  
• In the background: Thompson did the advance work that allowed the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to attack and quash democracy in Wisconsin.
  

I figure the junta is either trying to hinder Cullen's bid for the Governorship by tainting him with the stink of their own corruption, or Cullen is more one of them than one of us. Either way, any endorsement from Walker's cabal of fascist thieves, particularly of a candidate preparing to run against them, brings both the candidate and the endorsement under suspicion.

The Walker administration is corrupt, anti-democratic and un-American. Accepting endorsements from them, or the likes of Thompson, is questionable strategy at best.

Just sayin'.

Corporations: As people, you suck

Casting corporations as people, and their money as speech, lends them legitimacy in government they do not merit and is rational only if one assumes government should be run on a corporate model. Because, y'know, business and financial types never fuck anything up. It was the folks who believed they could afford those mortgages who brought the economy to the brink, right? Even though they were lied to (the back room term in the business is "liar's loans"), they should've known it was too good to be true. Then the banks committed "control fraud" by colluding with property estimators and securities rating companies to bundle and re-sell these worthless pieces of paper as AAA-rated instruments before they defaulted. When the bottom fell out of the whole thing, our corporate citizens were bailed out by flesh-and-blood taxpayers, and nobody went to jail. Back to record-breaking earnings, privatized profits and socialized losses.

Here's one problem: governments and corporations have differing and mutually exclusive motives. Where the motive of government on our constitutional model is to provide for its citizens, the motive of government on the corporate model is to make money off the provisions, or rig the game so our corporate citizens can.

Here's another problem: When 20% of Americans control 93% of the country's financial wealth and 85% of its total net worth, 80% of us are going to be without a voice because we don't have the money to buy into the game of government. Screwed. And expecting the federal legislature to act on our behalf? 47% of Congress, as opposed to 1% of the general population of the U.S., are millionaires.

And yet another: Voter suppression ID laws springing up like pecker-shaped mushrooms in states across the country. This is blatant, arrogant disenfranchisement of targeted groups, anti-democratic, and un-American. It is also a direct by-product of corporatist take-over.

The insulting roster of potential Republican candidates for President in 2012: really? How many people even in the Tea Party base are that fucking stupid? It doesn't matter, though, how much of a tool they put into the office, as long as it one of their tools. Because "tool" is precisely the right word.


To paraphrase:

'A man without a corporation is like a fish without a bicycle.'

Like they say, I'd rather be a stationary haddock.