Let’s Talk About That Whole Scott Walker Criminal Investigation Thing

Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin. (photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

 

Charles Pierce | Esquire | Reader Supported News | August 9, 2015

Watching Scotty blow, continued.

 

here’s a nice moment that comes at the end of every investigation, whether that comes at the end of a successful trial or, as is the case here, whether the investigation dies a premature death because the entire system has been rigged through politics to kill the investigation until it is really, most sincerely, dead. That moment occurs when the principals involved release all the supporting documents behind their respective cases secure in the knowledge that nobody’s paying attention any more, if they ever were at all.

They are at that most interesting point up in that Koch Industries midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin. Two weeks ago, a rather obvious judicial bag job ended the investigation into the shenanigans that invariably attend any campaign conducted on behalf of Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their subsidiary. Throughout the various investigations, Walker, now running for president of the United States, insisted that he was never a target of the investigation. To the surprise of absolutely nobody, this now has been shown to be something of an exaggeration.

In a court filing made in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin by Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm and two deputies, a 2011 request for search warrants indicates that investigators believed there was probable cause Walker and two associates committed felony misconduct in office while Walker’s administration negotiated a lease to house the county’s Department on Aging. An affidavit filed by Robert Stelter, an investigator in the Milwaukee County district attorney’s office, states: “I believe that there is probable cause to believe that Scott Walker, John Hiller, and Andrew Jensen, in concert together, committed a felony, i.e., Misconduct in Public Office.”

Doing something criminal while negotiating a lease is pretty much the same kind of nickel-and-dime grifting that has been a feature of Walker’s entire political career. The fact that it is still a big deal in what’s left of the state is a window into the good-government Wisconsin that Walker, his handlers, and his pet legislature have worked so assiduously to destroy. In other words, it’s more than typical. (If you want to look at grand-illusion corruption, as opposed to simple sleight-of-hand sleaziness, the Gogebec Iron Mine is where you want to look.) Ball’s in your court tonight, Megyn.

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Inside the Koch Brothers’ Toxic Empire

Tim Dickinson | Rolling Stone | Reader Supported News | September 30, 2014

Together, Charles and David Koch control one of the world’s largest fortunes, which they are using to buy up our political system. But what they don’t want you to know is how they made all that money

 

he enormity of the Koch fortune is no mystery. Brothers Charles and David are each worth more than $40 billion. The electoral influence of the Koch brothers is similarly well-chronicled. The Kochs are our homegrown oligarchs; they’ve cornered the market on Republican politics and are nakedly attempting to buy Congress and the White House. Their political network helped finance the Tea Party and powers today’s GOP. Koch-affiliated organizations raised some $400 million during the 2012 election, and aim to spend another $290 million to elect Republicans in this year’s midterms. So far in this cycle, Koch-backed entities have bought 44,000 political ads to boost Republican efforts to take back the Senate.

What is less clear is where all that money comes from. Koch Industries is headquartered in a squat, smoked-glass building that rises above the prairie on the outskirts of Wichita, Kansas. The building, like the brothers’ fiercely private firm, is literally and figuratively a black box. Koch touts only one top-line financial figure: $115 billion in annual revenue, as estimated by Forbes. By that metric, it is larger than IBM, Honda or Hewlett-Packard and is America’s second-largest private company after agribusiness colossus Cargill. The company’s stock response to inquiries from reporters: “We are privately held and don’t disclose this information.”

But Koch Industries is not entirely opaque. The company’s troubled legal history – including a trail of congressional investigations, Department of Justice consent decrees, civil lawsuits and felony convictions – augmented by internal company documents, leaked State Department cables, Freedom of Information disclosures and company whistle­-blowers, combine to cast an unwelcome spotlight on the toxic empire whose profits finance the modern GOP.

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Dirty Hands: 77 ALEC Bills in 2013 Advance a Big Oil, Big Ag Agenda

English: A map showing aquifer thickness of the Ogallala Aquifer with the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline route laid over. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Brendan Fischer | PR Watch | Reader Supported News | August 3, 2013

At least 77 bills to oppose renewable energy standards, support fracking and the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, and otherwise undermine environmental laws were introduced in 34 states in 2013, according to a new analysis from the Center for Media and Democracy, publishers of ALECexposed.org. In addition, nine states have been inspired by ALEC’s “Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act” to crack down on videographers documenting abuses on factory farms.

ALEC, Fueled by Fossil Fuel Industry, Pursues Retrograde Energy Agenda

For decades, ALEC has been a favored conduit for some of the worlds largest polluters, like Koch Industries, BP, Shell, Chevron, and Exxon Mobil, and for decades has promoted less environmental regulation and more drilling and fracking.

ALEC bills in recent years have pulled states out of regional climate initiatives, opposed carbon dioxide emission standards, created hurdles for state agencies attempting to regulate pollution, and tried to stop the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. The legislation introduced in 2013 carries on this legacy. ALEC bills favor the fossil fuel barons and promote a retrograde energy agenda that pollutes our air and water and is slowly cooking the planet to what may soon be devastating temperatures.

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Conservative Koch Brothers Turning Focus to Newspapers

Tannen Maury/European Pressphoto Agency

Tribune’s newspapers, including The Chicago Tribune, have caught the interest of a number of suitors.

AMY CHOZICK | New York Times | April 20, 2013

Three years ago, Charles and David Koch, the billionaire industrialists and supporters of libertarian causes, held a seminar of like-minded, wealthy political donors at the St. Regis Resort in Aspen, Colo. They laid out a three-pronged, 10-year strategy to shift the country toward a smaller government with less regulation and taxes.

The first two pieces of the strategy — educating grass-roots activists and influencing politics — were not surprising, given the money they have given to policy institutes and political action groups. But the third one was: media.

Other than financing a few fringe libertarian publications, the Kochs have mostly avoided media investments. Now, Koch Industries, the sprawling private company of which Charles G. Koch serves as chairman and chief executive, is exploring a bid to buy the Tribune Company’s eight regional newspapers, including The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The Orlando Sentinel and The Hartford Courant.

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