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Wisconsin State Senator Tim Carpenter asks Gov. Walker to resign because of what was revealed on the fake Koch call:
Dear Governor Walker,
I am informed that a tape recording has been released in which you apparently held an extensive discussion with someone you believed to be your campaign supporter, David Koch. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel states that the caller was actually a reporter, pretending to be David Koch, and it has posted a transcript of the recording. It appears that you admit the call occurred, and have not contested the authenticity of transcript.
David Koch is the billionaire businessman who reportedly contributed thousands to your campaign and who the media claims is a key source of funding for shadowy political groups that spend hundreds of thousands of dollars attacking your political adversaries in our state.
At a historic moment in our State’s history, brought on by your refusal to compromise with elected officials regarding the elimination of worker’s rights, you still refuse to talk with Democratic legislators. However, you apparently have no problem taking a phone call from “Mr. Koch” and to:
•Discuss your strategy to lay off public workers to seek partisan advantage to pass your agenda;
•Discuss your plan to lure Democratic legislators to the Capitol on the pretext of negotiation, but then state that you would never actually negotiate;
•Discuss your plan to use the pretext of negotiation to get a quorum for legislative fiscal action that Republicans so far have not been able to do;
•Discuss that you considered the “planting” of paid troublemakers into the peaceful protests at our Capitol; and to
•Give your enthusiastic acceptance to an offer from “Koch” to fly you out on a vacation to show you a “good time” once you “crush these bastards.” Your response was “That would be outstanding…” Given that Koch’s businesses could reap vast rewards with the ‘no bid’ sale of the Wisconsin’s power plants that you propose in your budget repair bill, this response is severely troubling.
Governor Walker, this tape would make Richard Nixon blush. If the recording and the items discussed by you are indeed your plans, you have no business being in public office in our State, and should resign.
Sincerely,
Tim Carpenter
State Senator
40 Comments
Are there no malfeasance laws in Wisconsin?
Good on Carpenter. Every other Senator should sign this, regardless of party affiliation. Walker got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. It’s time for him to go.
There must be a few Tea Party protesters in WI who aren’t being paid. Shouldn’t they be calling on Gov Walker to resign?
It is my understanding that a great many of these people at the headquarters are not getting paid. LOL!
I am very happy to see a senator speak to him about resigning.
I guess Walker decided he’s better move fast after blowing the whole republican plan to impoverish Civil servants ( along with the rest of US) all over the NOOZ.
I’m sorry, I keep thinking of the Disney cartoon character Goofy when I see pix of this guy or his facial expressions.( or hear him)
Now, any NORMAL person would be hiding in shame after revealing such collusion and corruption; but not Walker, nope He’s DESCISIVE leadership in action!!! Yup,yup, yup. ahah, ahah, ahah.
Geez Loueez”
If anyone is expecting Walker to resign because of “shame”, they are sadly mistaken. Shame doesn’t work on sociopaths.
Didn’t Walker and Koch also discuss Mika Brzezinski’s hotness on that phone call?
Carpenter left that out of his list of things that Walker found time to discuss with David Koch.
For those who like to compare this political sting with the ACORN incident, remember: the only one dressed up like a prostitute in this political sting was Gov Walker.
Yeah, I don’t think anyone is ‘expecting” him to resign.
Your right about that. Democrats cannot do it if they are in another state. The governor is in power until democrats stand up and hold him accountable.
Link
Koch: You gotta love that Mika Brzezinski; she’s a real piece of ass.
Walker: Ooh yeah.
So they can make him resign if they return? I don’t think so. They’re doing the only thing they can in standing up to a dictator.
Still, they’re Democrats, and Democrats only deserve credit for what they do WHEN THEY GET RESULTS.
Otherwise, it’s just them playing their part in kabuki and trying to score points that they don’t deserve.
I hope that this dimwit asshole does resign, and when he does he utters: “You won’t have Scott Walker to kick around anymore”
Wouldn’t matter when your Republican State AG is so busy trying to get the goods (potential illegal union money to be able to stay out of WI longer) on those lazy 14 Democrats in Illinois.
Great letter. Keep the pressure on, don’t let up for a second. Walker will fold in ten days if this keeps up.
Walker also used State Police in an attempt to intimidate the Democratic Senators. It is illegal to use State Police for political purposed in WI.
LOL! I hear he may have committed another illegal act by sending troopers after the senators families!
He should resign.
Where was the outrage when Obama and the democratic controlled house and senate rammed health care down the throats of the American people? You guys are getting a taste of your own medicine.
The Republicans are in control now in Wisconsin. Tough Sh*t!
We can’t have special interests (e.g. Teachers Union) sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don’t mind the Democrats joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back. (does this sound a little familiar??)
The outrage was all over Firedoglake when Obama and Senate Democrats rammed their corporate-friendly piece of shit health care bill down the throats of the American people.
Maybe you should read some of the posts at FDL. You might learn something about the screwing over of the middle class.
I just hope I can get him to sign my cheese hat before he is forced to resign.
Wait: so middle class workers — such as teachers, firefighters, and crime fighters are NOT part of the middle class?!!
the Kool Aid is REAL thick these days, isn’t it?
SMH
+1
Since when were teachers, firemen, police, and other gov’t workers not “middle class”??? I don’t “get” your flawed “logic,” frederic.
Maybe you ought to consider the salient fact that YOU might have very unsafe, unhealthy working conditions with far longer hours at much lower pay if it wasn’t for what the Unions fought and died for in this nation. Believe it or not, it’s not just those who are actually union members, who have benefited from what the Unions have accomplished.
And by the way, almost *no one* here at FDL was in favor of “Obamacare.” We were resoundingly protesting it throughout the whole process. So you might also want to do a little a homework before you come here to flame those of us who didn’t like or endorse what happened with so-called “health care reform.”
Walker should resign immediately.
It was a completely different matter when Palin was pwnded with the fake Sarkosy phone call. In that instance, Palin just looked like a credulous buffoon, but she really didn’t do anything “wrong.”
In this fake phone call, it’s clear how Walker is utterly *bought off* by Koch and is willing to dance to his tune. Is this what his constituents voted for? I doubt that even conservatives want a shill for the uber-rich as their governor. If, in fact, that is what conservatives want, then shame on them.
If conservatives happen to believe that this type of action only affects dreaded evil filthy gov’t workers (who have somehow become the scapegoat for this depression, rather than the Wall Streeters, banksters & hedge funders, who are really responsible), then they are being very short-sighted and ignorant.
Any end-run done on the collective bargaining rights of these workers will ultimately result in downgrading *all* workers’ rights in this country.
Wake up, sheeples, indeed.
Ah yea, those teachers living in the lap of luxury making $100Gs a year.
Anyone know any?
Nixon would be considered a “filthy leftist” by this crowd
As for teachers, there was a time when they were poor. My mother began teaching in a 1 room schoolhouse in the early 40′s. There was no union, no health insurance, no pension and she was responsible for her own contract year to year. Pay was abysmal. She continued to teach when the little school districts “consolidated”–that was when conditions began to improve. She took a break of 5-6 years to grow my sister and me out of our diapers and went back to teaching. Every 3-5 years she went to summer school to keep up her credentials and she paid out of her own pocket. The union helped by providing for a real contract, a pension and eventually, health insurance, although pay was still very low, considering her level of education. When she retired in the early 80′s, after 33 years in the classroom, she was making in the neighborhood of $40,000 (she taught in a rural district). It took her over a third of her career to become comfortably “middle class”, although with two incomes, in the 1950′s we were middle class. My father, with much less education than my mother, earned more than her. The upside was that her retirement, before SS, was 2/3 of her final working income and SS made up the rest. Health insurance was only paid when she turned 65, but that was only a couple of years after retirement that she was socked for that. Where is there another profession with so many people with advanced degrees (it is amazing how many classroom teachers have a Masters) that earn so little? What makes it worthwhile, aside from the love of teaching, is the retirement benefit, and I wonder when the politicians, most of whom make far more than a teacher, will wise up to that fact. I think they want to relegate teachers to the “second income” status that my mother was in for much of her career.
Walker was admitting (in punked comments) to premeditated planning on use of threats of employee layoff notices as a ploy to force through legislation to usurp current legislative oversight of state government functions. If he uses state employees today, to send out these notices as a political ploy, as he seems to have promised to simply ratchet pressure on the Dems, instead of an actual fiscal necessity, that should be illegal use of state employees or at least punishable violations of ethics.
The “non-partisan” office of the State Republican Attorney General should be looking into this possibility instead of following the Governor’s stated (punked) current request of using the AG’s office to try to track “illegal,” money from unions that might be going to the 14 in Illinois.
Nixon did that – and came back.
Freddie, *edited by mod*? In case you were not paying attention the US Congress held nearly a year of hearing on the health care bills before voting on them. Your goof-ball, non-factual comparison of the two events would likely result in you *edited by mod*. The is the result of your inability to discern the difference between unlike things and points directly to your inability to think like an adult.
*modnote: please don’t insult fellow commenters*
Thanks for your mom’s personal story. It is true that “back in the day” before unionization teachers didn’t make very good pay or have any or decent benefits. Then teachers were unionized and – gasp shudder horrors – they started to make a living wage, get better benefits (how dare they???) and get a pension. What many don’t realize, though, is that for teachers to get the “best” pension, they usually have to put in 30 to 35 years full-time, and even then, the pension, while good, isn’t bountiful. And these days, often teachers (and other govt workers) still don’t get full medical benefits (although they might get some med benefits).
Yeah, conservatives have been carefully taught to *hate* the public school system like crazy (using that word specifically) and to *hate* the teachers unions like crazy… usually without having any real notion of what the unions have done, what actual salaries teachers are making, much less having any real grasp on what their pensions are like (and don’t take into account that teachers are contributing to their pensions from their salaries all along).
The elites, esp, would LOVE nothing more than to go back to the serfdom early days of US public education, when teachers made bupkiss, got no benefits and no pension.
You’re correct that, in general, today’s average teacher salary is still pretty low. I believe teachers at the very high end of the scale (after working for 30 or 35 years) are usually making somewhere in the high $60,000s – and this is for highly experienced teachers who usually have at least one, if not more, Masters Degrees.
The teachers I know all work their butts off. It’s not an easy job, and geez, they’re *training* the future workers of America. What a concept.
It is incredibly short-sighted, to say the least, to *hate* teachers and their salaries, which aren’t munificent.
The same could be said about most/all other public servants, esp those in the public safety sector, like firefighters and police.
It’s not public sector workers who have trashed our economy. It’s those on Wall St and in the TBTF Banks and the Hedgefunders.
Wake up. Smell the coffee.
No. And I know a lot of teachers, frankly. None of them make even close to that.
A six figure salary is usually earned by School Superintendents, and that’s about it. Most Principals don’t make that much, although there might be some.
Teachers in public schools? No, not really.
Governor Walker “… considered the “planting” of paid troublemakers into the peaceful protests at our Capitol …”.
Terrorism – the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
If Gov. Walker were a poor Arab-American discussing this on a tape with an FBI informant in Newburgh, NY he would be headed straight to jail.
The rule of law in this country is broken.
nice “good faith” negotiations going on in WI. Not.
Well, there are “teachers” and there are “educators”. I mean, administrators who pull down six figure salaries here in California. All of this get conflated into references to teachers.
Our wonderful UC regents are paid very handsomely and it’s all justified that their salaries have to compete with the “private sector” etc etc.
They then make difficult decisions to cut pay for professors in the classroom and other employees who add value to the educational environment, experience. They then vote to give themselves raises because they make these difficult decisions to cut other people’s pay and to raise students’ tuition. Then they decide they must spend megamillions to private contractors to help them make more difficult decisions.
So, there are the middle class state employees who are worth every penny and there are the uppercrust elites living off the govt teat. Administration ballooned in the nineties at the same time that the provision to keep tuition rates “low & predictable” expired. Interesting, no?
See, corporate shill media? Here’s how journalism is done; please take note.
Once upon a time, before you all started making six figure salaries, it was a tenet of your profession that you “afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.”
And you wonder why you are despised so much. And oh, how you get the vapors when reminded of the stenography that continues to comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted. Like in the lead up to the Iraq Illegal Invasion and Occupation, for example.
Go shoot your super soakers with Rahm and Sanchez. You make me SICK.
The fact that he even considered planting (troublemakers) raised concern and a statement from police, because of potential public safety issues that they would have been unaware of, and they did not appreciate it.
http://www.channel3000.com/news/26979885/detail.html
His reason for not going there had to do with how it may come off publicity wise. He never thought of potential public safety issues.
The Rich and Powerful have been avoiding the law for centuries. Why would it change now?
Yeah, that’s pretty disgusting, and I agree w/you esp about the UC Regents (who are striving mightily to be members of the Oligarchy but not quite making it). I would love to see their frigging salaries cut big-time.
But K-12 teachers making 6 figure salaries? Not anywhere that I know of.
But speaking of cognitive dissonance, I have heard my country club Republican “friends” actually *bragging* about how their kids’ private school teachers are making something like $90k per year. Well, hey, I’m mostly “ok” with that salary, but there’s another piece of the puzzle, if it’s true. These upper middle class folks appear quite willing to pay their private and charter school teachers ample salaries (perhaps deserved), but when it comes to dreaded and dreadful “public servants” who teach the working and middle classes… take a hike and get minimum wage I guess.
Go figure… I have no idea if these private school teachers make as much as these folks bragged about, but I seriously doubt it. Goes to show, though, that the upper middle class thinks only about themselves and making sure that they give junior & daughters a good education. But anyone else can get stuffed.
The level of selfishness and greed anymore is what’s so galling, sad and ultimately to the detriment of us all.