Governor Scott Walker's new "Reforms and Results" website touting the successes of his policies is allegedly a campaign website funded by taxpayers, according to a complaint filed Tuesday by the Wisconsin Democratic Party.
Wisconsin's American Legislative Exchange Council-inspired voter ID law, which will make it harder for students and people of color to vote, is being challenged under the state constitution by the League of Women Voters.
The law requires potential voters to show a valid state-issued driver's license or identification card before they can cast a ballot, rendering many state residents ineligible to vote. Wisconsin, like thirteen other states, passed the law earlier this year based on the ALEC "model" voter ID bill.
Executives from major American corporations are calling for greater transparency in election spending, alleging the shadowy, secretly-funded groups that spent hundreds of millions on the 2010 elections are distorting the democratic process. Groups like Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS, they say, will spend an increasing amount in future elections and political scandal will follow. Meanwhile, Wisconsin leaders promote even greater election secrecy.
Wisconsin Republicans, without going on-the-record with a vote, have used a legislative trick to block an election board rule that would have shed light on the corporate interests laundering election spending through front groups. The move echoes the American Legislative Exchange Council agenda and will likely ensure a flood of secret ads and robo-calls for Wisconsin's 2012 elections.
Submitted by Anne Landman on
Sitting Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour has joined Karl Rove's well-funded, politically "conservative" super PAC, Crossroads GPS.
Leaked audio from the Koch brothers' June donor meeting in Vail, Colorado reveals connections between the Kochs and a wealthy Wisconsin funder whose hundreds of thousands helped elect Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson and Governor Scott Walker.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in a Tea Party challenge to proposed election spending disclosure rules. While billed as a case involving free speech and a possible response to the post-Citizens United campaign landscape, the outcome may be decided on more mundane grounds of whether the state elections board acted within its statutory authority.
Across the country on September 1, nurses will converge on local congressional offices to demand a tax on Wall Street financial speculation, a move they say is a step towards healing the nation, trimming the deficit, and preserving social programs.
National Nurses United (NNU) is planning a day of action in over 60 congressional offices in 21 states. In Wisconsin, the group is sponsoring a soup kitchen outside of Rep. Paul Ryan's Janesville office "to provide residents with the sustenance they are not getting from Paul Ryan," says NNU spokesman Charles Idelson.
Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan's focus on cutting federal social programs apparently leaves little time to deal with the unemployed in his district, according to constituents who have been staging a sit-in at his Kenosha, Wisconsin office since last week, and who were barred from Ryan's office by police on Wednesday.
It's our responsibility as journalists to let the public know who is paid by what corporation, or if they're representing the government. Otherwise, it's unforgivable. The media is our lens on the world. And it is absolutely critical we trust the media. Because, ultimately, when people are terrorized, when people are targeted, when people are marginalized, that does not make any of us safer.
- Amy Goodman, interview in "Programming the Nation?" documentary
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