Walker's not only a lousy governor, but he's a bad judge of character.

Ah Republicans; the family values party, and our supposed biggest supporters of our freedom fighting troops, are having big problems on both fronts. They look to be sick crooks too.

And most shocking (or not); Gov. Scott Walker chose each one of the charged felons listed below, as people he wanted in his administration. He really knows how to pick ‘em:

josonline-Dan Bice: Three individuals - including a former top aide to Gov. Scott Walker - were charged Thursday with felonies as part of the ongoing John Doe investigation into Walker staffers.

Tim Russell, a longtime Walker campaign and county staffer, was charged with two felonies and one misdemeanor count of embezzlement. One source said the charges are tied to Operation Freedom, an annual military appreciation day held at the zoo.

Kevin Kavanaugh, Walker's appointee to the Milwaukee County Veteran Service Commission. Kavanaugh is charged with five felonies for theft and fraudulent writings by a corporate officer. He was the treasurer of the Milwaukee Purple Heart chapter at the time of the dispute over the (missing) $11,000 for Operation Freedom.

Brian Pierick, Russell's longtime domestic partner and a staffer at the state Department of Public Instruction, 48, was charged with two felony counts for child enticement. He is an office operations assistant at DPI dealing with education for homeless children and youth, according to the agency's website. 

If I’m reading Bice’s story correctly, Pierick is currently involved with homeless children?

Kind of makes you wonder about everyone else Walker picked to represent the special "values" he brings to office. This of course is just another example of projection, where the biggest offenders of common decency are the quickest to blame the other side for their own weaknesses. 

Why is Crime Dropping?

Link sent in by Laci the Dog

The BBC reports on ten possible explanations. Somehow they didn't even mention more guns equals less crime. Here's my favorite.

There is a controversial theory put forward by economist Steven Levitt that the increased availability of legal abortion after the Supreme Court ruling in 1973 on Roe v Wade meant that fewer children were born to young, poor, single mothers. This, says the theory, stopped unwanted babies in the 1970s and 80s from becoming adolescent criminals in the decades that followed. But some of his peers have questioned whether the evidence really supports the theory.

(cross posted at Mikeb302000)

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Fear mongering scaredy-cat Rep. Scott Suder in top form, costing the state billions to house “dangerous” well behaved prisoners.

While most states realized how costly "truth and sentencing" was, bankrupting their economies and shortchanging school funding, Rep. Scott Suder and Gov. Scott Walker have decided to go in the other direction. In their roles of playing the disciplinary father figures, Walker and Suder believe the political cost to them is even greater if they don't appear tough on crime, so who cares about the added cost to taxpayers. 

ChippewaHerold: The state Senate has approved a Republican measure that would all but end a program that grants criminals early release from prison … (releasing) well-behaved prisoners as a means of alleviating prison crowding. About 500 inmates have been released through the program between October 2009 and this past March. The bill would erase almost all the early release provisions. 

Senate Democrats complained repealing the program would lead to spending billions on prison expansion.

The ever frugal tightfisted fiscal conservatives answer?

Republicans countered that early release undermines truth-in-sentencing.

Yes, we know, that’s why it saves money on what is a really dumb, costly, chest pounding “tough on crime” cliché.

Assembly Majority Leader Scott Suder (R-Abbotsford) authored the repeal bill. He says … that it also endangers the public.

Even with concealed carry? Mission accomplished "scaredy-cat" Scott.

What you didn't know about Rep. Darrell "the car thief" Issa!!!

Crooks and Liars ran this revealing piece on Rep. Darrell Issa (watch for the pattern to develop):

Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the incoming subpoena-wielding chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, was on Faux News this weekend, attacking ACORN and Attorney General Eric Holder, talking about how "corrupt" the Obama administration is. 

 Via Wikipeda:

A retired Army sergeant claimed that Issa stole a Dodge sedan from an Army post near Pittsburgh in 1971. The sergeant said he recovered the car after confronting and threatening him.

Issa denied the allegation and no charges were filed.

In 1972, Issa and his brother allegedly stole a red Maserati sports car from a car dealership in Cleveland.

He and his brother were indicted for car theft, but the case was dropped.

That same year, Issa was convicted in Michigan for possession of an unregistered gun. He received three months probation and paid a $204 fine.

[...] On December 28, 1979, Issa and his brother allegedly faked the theft of Issa's Mercedes Benz sedan.

Issa and his brother were charged for grand theft auto, but the case was dropped by prosecutors for lack of evidence.

Later, Issa and his brother were charged for misdemeanors, but that case was not pursued by prosecutors.

Issa accused his brother of stealing the car, and said that the experience with his brother was the reason he went into the car alarm business.

A day after a court order was issued, giving Issa control of automotive alarm company A.C. Custom over an unpaid $60,000 debt, Issa allegedly carried a cardboard box containing a handgun into the office of 

A.C. Custom executive, Jack Frantz, and told Frantz he was fired.

In a 1998 newspaper article, Frantz said Issa had invited him to hold the gun and claimed extensive knowledge of guns and explosives from his Army service.

In response, Issa said, "Shots were never fired. ... I don't recall having a gun. I really don't. I don't think I ever pulled a gun on anyone in my life."

Slime Trail leads to former Republican Assembly leader Scott Jensen. Conservatives are never wrong, Laws are.

I find it odd that so many former conservative crooks can get right back into politics without being tainted by their criminal past, while their liberal counter parts are run out of town for a paper they wrote 30 years ago in college or because of a friend with a questionable history.

Take the eternal case of former Republican Assembly speaker Scott Jensen. His actual defense is that the Democrats were doing it too. No, really. The best analogy is getting stopped for speeding, even though everyone around you was too. The thing is, you’re the one that got caught. Jensen got caught. So what. Dan Bice of the Milwauke Journal Sentinel writes:

Scott Jensen is back. Once one of the two most powerful figures in the statehouse … Jensen was one of several Capitol lawmakers from both parties charged with running campaigns with taxpayer resources. But unlike the others caught up in the scandal, he avoided a plea deal and took the matter to trial, where he was convicted of three felonies and one misdemeanor ethics violation. He was sentenced to 15 months in prison but was allowed to remain free while appealing the case.

In 2007, an appeals court threw out the felony convictions and granted him a new trial, saying Jensen's legal team should have been allowed to argue that Democrats also had long used legislative aides as campaign workers.

Jensen's friends think he has a good chance of being cleared. "They had to cheat to get a conviction," said a GOP political observer. "Captain Ahab (DA Brian Blanchard) isn't prosecuting the case, it won't be in Dane County and it's no longer a highly partisan Department of Justice (Republican partisan AG J.B. Van Hollen)."

A few readers left the only kind of response you would expect from such an absurd case.

The idea that Mr.Jensen did not know his caucus staff was campaigning on the taxpayer's dime in violation of the law is absurd. His defense seems to be "yes" but the Democrats did it too so there was no unfair advantage?

Jensen continues to act like he did absolutely nothing wrong. He was a victim just
doing what everyone else was doing. Poor guy.

Rep. Scott Suder: He's still a fear mongering, tax wasting supporter of "truth in sentencing"...and an even bigger Idiot.

Awhile ago I wrote that State Rep. Scott Suder was an idiot. Name calling is a little out of character here at Democurmudgeon, but Suder was that one rare exception. After further research, and the Capital Times editorial below, it appears Suder is even a bigger idiot than previously thought.

Corrections Secretary Rick Raemisch … made a baffling statement that might cause Wisconsinites to wonder if personal ambitions and petty politics, rather than public safety, are driving policy decisions at DOC … When talking about the early release program with The Capital Times, Raemisch stated the program was a key to his legacy as corrections secretary and needed to be ramped up. He went on to say that he wants a program so powerful that no one would dare eliminate it.

Strange words from someone who often claims his agency is above politics and solely focused on public safety. I’d bet that most people think that a corrections secretary is supposed to manage our prison population, not create a legacy for himself.

Suder's attempt to conflate a legacy of sound corrections management with a supposed partisan agenda in nothing short of projection (the unconscious act of denial of a person's own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to other people. Thus, it involves imagining or projecting that others have those feelings.)

Suder's paranoid misgivings about a prisoners inner devils eventually terrorizing the public at large, is almost laughable, if it wasn't so frightening.

When asked about the rap sheets of these inmates, all the public gets from Raemisch is silence. What is DOC trying to hide? …prisoners are released … in secret, behind closed doors with zero public input … so he’s going to roll the dice and let as many prisoners out as quickly as he can before voters have a chance to weigh in on the matter in November … he has decided to open the prison gates a little wider and send thousands of dangerous criminals back into our neighborhoods before he’s out of a job … simply reckless and irresponsible.

Never mind the fact that every state that has done this saved massive amounts of taxpayer money, and successfully reintegrated prisoners back into society, which should be our main goal. It might even leave some extra money over for school funding. But punishment and scaring the public for political purposes is Suder's goal.

People are paying attention and they will hold the Democrats accountable for this dangerous policy that threatens the safety of every Wisconsin community that these inmates will now call home … I wonder what they tell their constituents when one or more of these career criminals are let loose in their communities?

Despite the documented proof, even from our neighboring state Minnesota, Suder wants to spend even more taxpayer money auditing the newly implemented program. It's not like the DOC won't be keeping track too, documenting the success and failure rates of early release prisoners, and making necessary adjustments along the way. The sooner the audit, the smaller the savings will appear. And that's what Suder is counting on.

Soon I will ask for a full audit of this program to shine some light on how much, if anything, the program is saving taxpayers.

Suder's a first class big spending, conservative snake...and still an idiot.