Thanks Koch Brothers!

Gov. Scott Walker uses Koch money to help influence the vote in Wisconsin, and he's proud of the changes he's made on behalf of rentiers over workers up here.*  Speaking with pundit provocateur Glenn Beck, Walker gushed:

Deep, deep under fire and battle tested, I think I have extra layers of battle armor on there. You’re right: Madison, Wisconsin, which is kind of to the left of Pravda… it is the home of the progressive movement, the home of—AFSCME was started there, collective bargaining was started there… it was the state that had the first income tax. Who would have thought that that city and the state of Wisconsin that hasn’t gone Republican since 1984, we would be able to take on the public employee unions four years ago and not only win that battle but win the recalls against a whole bunch of state senators, win the recall against me and the lieutenant governor in the state, but now Wisconsin when it comes to public employee unions we have no seniority or tenure, we can hire and fire based on merit, we can pay based on performance, we’re the 25th state in the nation to have Right-To-Work, we require photo ID for voting, we’ve defunded Planned Parenthood and pushed pro-life legislation and we’ve passed concealed carry and castle doctrine, we cut taxes by $2 billion—in fact property taxes are lower today than they were four years ago—who would have thought all that would happen? But we said shortly after the 2010 election that we had to go big and we had to go bold and it was put up or shut up time. Even in Madison, Wisconsin, we were able to get that done.

But if you follow the money..
I would like to call for transparency, and ask Univ. of Wisconsin law professor Ann Althouse, and her second husband Laurence Meade -- a white transplanted Hoosier who romanced the professor online -- to be transparent about the recent donations to their blog, solicited both directly via PayPal, and indirectly pocketing a commission for products sold at Amazon.com.

The professor blogs daily, and offers dubious legal analysis on behalf of Scott Walker;  she and her husband videotaped and mocked government workers legally protesting the elimination of collective bargaining rights in our state.

* Note:  Gov. Walker never went after the tenured professors here, who collect hundreds of thousands annually, while teaching perhaps 2 classes a semester, and neglecting legal scholarship once tenured.  Publishing a personal blog really is not the same as publishing scholarly legal analysis, akin to the weighty topics discussed on other legal blogs, where the scholarship is both recognized, cited by courts, and accompanied by publication in legal journals where these specialized matters are studied and discussed.

Althouse-Meade made no secret of their partnership:  Mr. Meade, a middle-aged father, divorced and with no college degree, is the non-working stay-at-home spouse, sharing the state employee's spousal benefits, and marital tax deduction that -- can we be honest? -- was meant to support the growth of families with children, assuming children are better raised with one parent in the home not working during their primary years.

Mr. Meade does take neighbors' dogs to the dog parks, where he photographs and posts on his own blog pictures of Madison-area pets, presumably with the owners' consent.  And he is a big opiner on his wife's blog, where his lack of education is proudly on public display, as in this post regarding Charlie Hustle:

Dozens of games that season, I would buy cheap center field tickets because my 3 yr-old was crazy about Eric Davis and she loved to chant his name at the end of every top inning. I still have the ball he tossed us.

There's a photo in SI when the Reds were fighting to hold onto first place against the Giants. Hal Morris is going head over heels into the home dugout after a high foul pop the just above the dugout is being caught by me and my two buddies. Well, one of my buddies is actually catching the ball. But, HEY, I had my hands up and I was reaching for it! 

...

All of Pete's marriages were gay. But he did not like his nipples played with. I remember reading that in his Playboy interview. What a great hitting gay weirdo he was.

The greatest hitting gay weirdo ever.

He's joking, of course.
But what's not really funny is how he, and his wife, are collecting money for ignorant and polarizing comments like that -- using social issues, esp. re. teh gays, to distract voters -- and the numerous posts defending Gov. Walker's legally questionable actions on her personal blog.

Who is donating?
Why not continue the Wisconsin tradition of transparency, and tell us who is donating how much and who is "employed" by the blog's revenues?

It is so easy for politicians' PACs to pump money into social media sites like that, where the professor trades in her years of legit teaching at the state law school, to influence the uneducated (*and perhaps fearful?)  white male voters in the state like her husband, who believe her legal work to be solid.  It's not.  She has a bias in her bonnet, and ought to decide which Master she is serving:

■ the state university that employs her and expects disciplined and unbiased scholarship;
or
■ the as-yet undisclosed money collected online to keep the blog spewing lowest-common-denominator opinions, which have noticeably been influenced in recent years by the presence of the undereducated and unemployed dependent she keeps at home.

(unless of course, for tax purposes, he's an "employee" of  her anonymous donation-soliciting blog...)
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* Gov. Walker is also looking to suck taxpayer funds from public schools, available to all children, and subsidize, via tax redistribution vouchers, those families that choose private -- often religious-based -- educations for their children.  No thank you.

Walker, who's beginning his second term, delivered the spending plan to the GOP-controlled Legislature amid growing interest in his likely Republican presidential run. The $68 billion budget covering taxing and spending in Wisconsin over the next two years is the last one Walker will release before the 2016 campaign for the White House.

Walker said his budget would help deliver the "American dream" to people who have felt left out in recent years.

"Our plan is based on growth and opportunity, which leads to freedom and prosperity for all," he said. "Secondly, our plan will use common sense reforms to create a government that is limited in scope and, ultimately, more effective, more efficient, and more accountable to the public."

But his plan is already running into opposition from Republicans and Democrats alike, who cite concerns over a 13 percent cut to the University of Wisconsin System, no increase in money for public schools and a 30 percent increase in borrowing for roads and infrastructure spending.

Rep. Chris Taylor, D-Madison, clad in a red Wisconsin badger T-shirt beneath her black blazer, said proposed cuts to the UW system and public schools would lead the state in the wrong direction.

"This budget we think is going to be balanced on the backs of our middle-class families and our children," Taylor said.

Walker's budget would cut $300 million from the UW System. Tuition would be frozen over the next two years, while UW would be given more freedom from state oversight and laws.  Both Republicans and Democrats have said the cut is too large and will do irreparable harm both the university and state economy.

Walker is also calling for removing a 1,000-student lid on the private-school voucher program. Going forward, the program would be available to students transferring in from public schools at any point, and also private school students entering kindergarten, the first grade or ninth grade. Money to pay for it would come from state aid sent to those public schools losing the student.
...
School spending would be held in check to fulfill Walker's re-election promise to lower property taxes. Bills on a median-valued $151,000 home could go down $5 in each of the next two years.

Don't spend it all in one place, American Dreamers.