Donald Trump implicated in Scott Walker corruption scandal in Wisconsin

A recent leak of documents from the John Doe II investigation into allegations that Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) illegally coordinated with outside political groups (most notably the Wisconsin chapter of the right-wing group Club for Growth), has, yet again, shown that the Walker Administration in Wisconsin is grotesquely corrupt. You can view the documents here, and the British newspaper The Guardian has a special feature on the document release here.

As evidenced by the leaked documents, the corruption trail is so deep in Wisconsin, it leads right up to the individual that the Republican Party nominated for President of the United States in this year’s presidential election, Donald Trump.

According to a recently leaked email, Walker was scheduled to meet with Donald Trump at 725 Fifth Avenue in New York City on the afternoon of April 3, 2012. 725 Fifth Avenue is the street address of Trump Tower, the headquarters of Donald Trump’s business empire. At the time, Walker was facing a recall attempt against him, with the recall election scheduled for June of that year (Walker went on to survive the recall attempt against him).

On the exact same day that Walker was scheduled to meet with Trump, Trump wrote a check, a photocopy of which was recently leaked, for $15,000. The check was not written either to Scott Walker personally or to Friends of Scott Walker, Walker’s official gubernatorial campaign committee, but instead to “Wisconsin Club for Growth Inc.”. Wisconsin Club for Growth is an outside political group that has spent millions of dollars supporting Republican political efforts in Wisconsin.

I don’t think for one second that Wisconsin Club for Growth receiving a check from Trump on the same day Walker met with Trump is merely a coincidence. In fact, the document leak, at a minimum, suggests that Trump has been an active player in Republican corruption in Wisconsin.

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Crooked Donald Trump used his foundation to buy off Florida Attorney General

By Donald Trump’s own standard of using a personal or family foundation for corrupt purposes, Trump is even more crooked than the Clintons ever could be.

Amid all of the corporate media hullabaloo about the Clinton Foundation and their corrupt dealings is recent media attention to a 2014 fundraiser for Republican Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, which was hosted by Trump:

…In March 2014, Donald Trump opened his 126-room Palm Beach resort, Mar-a-Lago, for a $3,000-per-person fundraiser for Pam Bondi. The Florida attorney general, who was facing a tough re-election campaign, had recently decided not to investigate Trump University.

Trump did not write a check to the attorney general that night. The previous fall, his personal foundation had given $25,000 to a pro-Bondi super PAC. But by hosting her fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago and bringing in some of his own star power, Trump provided Bondi’s campaign with a nice financial boost.

Since he began his run for the White House, Trump has repeatedly claimed that Bondi is merely someone he has supported politically. But his fundraising efforts for her were extensive and varied: In addition to the $25,000 donation from his foundation and the star-studded Mar-a-Lago event, Trump and his daughter Ivanka each gave $500 to Bondi’s campaign in the fall of 2013. The following spring, Ivanka and her father donated another $125,000 to the Republican Party of Florida ― Bondi’s single biggest source of campaign funds.

The reason why Trump’s ties to Bondi have come under public scrutiny in recent days is because of a couple of reasons.

First, that $25,000 check from Trump’s personal foundation to And Justice For All, a pro-Bondi SuperPAC, was a violation of IRS rules for Trump and his foundation. The IRS levied a $2,500 penalty against Trump for the illegal campaign donation from his foundation.

Second, Trump got something that is, to use a Rod Blagojevich saying, (expletive) golden in return for his efforts in helping Bondi get re-elected. Bondi’s office is supposed to be responsible for processing complaints against the fraudulent Trump University and its fraudulent predecessor Trump Institute, both of which masqueraded as online higher education institutions. However, Bondi’s office has done virtually nothing with the complaints, while the Connecticut Attorney General’s office, which is currently held by Democrat George Jepsen, has successfully helped people refunds for people who are victims of Trump’s deceptive practices.

Donald Trump has been caught engaging in some of the most blatant political corruption I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Although I’m probably asking too much of the GOP-controlled Florida state government, the State of Florida should assign a special prosecutor to determine whether or not criminal charges should be filed against Trump.

While Democrats call for more debates, Republicans use veterans as political pawns

With her political firewall eroding, Hillary Clinton is now calling for another Democratic presidential debate in New Hampshire on February 4, between the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primary. Not to be outdone by Hillary, Bernie Sanders called for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to sanction three debates in the later stages of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination:

Sanders’s campaign released a statement late Wednesday calling for additional debates in the Democratic primary, but with specific provisions.

The campaign is requesting one each in March, April and May. All three must not be scheduled on a Friday, Saturday or holiday, and all three must include Martin O’Malley along with Sanders and Clinton.

“If the Clinton campaign will commit to this schedule, we would ask the DNC [Democratic National Committee] to arrange a debate in New Hampshire on Feb. 4,” the statement said.

While Democrats are pushing the out-of-touch DNC into sanctioning more debates without using anybody as a political pawn, Republicans are offering more debates on their side of the ledger as a way of using those who served our country in uniform as political pawns. That all started over Donald Trump’s hissy fit about the fact that Megyn Kelly, a woman, will be the lead moderator of tonight’s FOX News Republican presidential debate in Iowa.

Two SuperPACs supporting Ted Cruz, Keep the Promise I and Keep the Promise II, offered to donate $1.5 million to charities supporting veterans if Trump and Cruz agree to a one-on-one debate before the Iowa Caucuses.

Not to be outdone by a Cruz SuperPAC, Carly Fiorina made a couple of offers to Trump, both of which would involve money being donated to veterans. The first offer involved a promise of a $1.5 million donation to veterans’ charities if Trump and Cruz agree to debate Fiorina in Sioux City, Iowa on Saturday, and the second officer involved a promise of a $2 million donation to veterans charities if Trump agreed to debate Fiorina at a Trump campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa scheduled for the same time as tonight’s debate.

While I normally appreciate donations to groups that seek to provide help to those who served our country in uniform (provided that they’re a reputable charity), using our nation’s veterans as political pawns is absolutely disgusting, and one of the lowest things I’ve ever seen in a presidential campaign. In fact, at least one veterans’ charity has already pre-emptively refused any money from a Trump event.

Pro-Hillary PAC attacks Bernie over his health

Although the official Hillary Clinton presidential campaign has not yet begun airing any attack ads against Bernie Sanders (despite a promise from U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack that Hillary will do so), a pro-Hillary political action committee (PAC) called Correct the Record is going on the attack against Bernie in the form of television ads:

Pro-Clinton super PAC Correct the Record will begin airing attack ads, calling for Senator Sanders to release his medical records.

The new assault on Senator Sanders comes as the polls tighten in Iowa, and he holds a commanding lead in the first primary state of New Hampshire.

The ad will reportedly call for Sanders to release his medical records before Iowans go to caucus on February 1st.

Presumably, the ad will air in Iowa, and possibly other early primary/caucus states as well.

This is a disgusting invasion of Bernie’s right to medical privacy. If Bernie and/or an outside group supporting Bernie ran attack ads calling for Hillary to release her medical records, I’d be just as disgusted and outraged. If a presidential candidate wishes to release his/her medical records, that’s his/her own prerogative. If a presidential candidate declines to release his/her medical records, that’s he/she reserving his/her right to medical privacy that is afforded by federal law.

This is different than, for example, tax returns, which, in my opinion, should be public record (currently, federal tax returns are not public record, although there may be some states where state tax returns are public record), and I call for all presidential candidates, regardless of party affiliation, to release at least 10 years worth of federal and state tax filings, if they have not already done so.

Scott Walker front group spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski doesn’t know how to properly use Twitter

As Chris “Capper” Liebenthal pointed out at Cognitive Dissidence, Kirsten Kukowski, the communications director of Our American Revival, an apparently illegal 527 group formed to support Scott Walker’s likely bid for the Republican presidential nomination, accidentally directed people to a Twitter handle that is not currently in use instead of Our American Revival’s Twitter page.

In the bio of her personal Twitter account, Kukowski incorrectly listed @OurAmericanRevival as the Walker front group’s Twitter page. In reality, that is a Twitter handle that is not currently in use by any person or organization, and a Twitter search for @OurAmericanRevival only comes up with a single tweet by someone who also got Our American Revival’s Twitter handle wrong. Our American Revival’s Twitter handle is actually @OurRevival. As of this writing, Kukowski has not yet updated her bio to include Our American Revival’s actual Twitter handle, and it appears that she’s only started following @OurRevival recently, as it’s near the top of her “following” list.

Given that Walker is surrounding himself with incompetent people like Kirsten Kukowski, who can’t direct people to the correct Twitter handle for a pro-Walker organization she works for, it’s clear to me that a Scott Walker presidency would likely be full of much more serious screw-ups that could endanger the American people.

Wisconsin Democrats troll launch of Scott Walker PAC

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The previous post on here was supposed to be my last post on here for the next month or so, but I couldn’t resist writing this one.

Democratic Party of Wisconsin (DPW) officials were waiting for Republican Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to launch a leadership PAC, whose name was recently announced as “Our American Revival”, for his 2016 presidential campaign to troll him (technically, Walker’s new PAC is not actually a PAC, but a 527 organization that is legally prohibited from expressly campaigning for him, although, in effect, it’s the closest thing Walker has to a leadership PAC).

An unnamed individual or group bought the “americanrevivalpac.com” domain name and linked to a BuzzFeed article written by an unnamed Democratic Party of Wisconsin (DPW) operative that shows a Dave Letterman-style “Top 10” list of “rejected names for Scott Walker’s PAC” (although the DPW’s list counts upward instead of downward like Letterman’s lists do), which attacks Walker for various things that he’s said and done since being elected Governor of Wisconsin. While it’s not clear as to who bought the domain name, and it’s not clear as to who wrote the Buzzfeed post, if I were to guess, the DPW probably bought the domain name using money from the party’s coffers (although it’s possible that some other Democratic group or Democrat with an interest in Wisconsin politics bought the domain name), and, if I were to guess, the BuzzFeed article was probably written by DPW Communications Director Melissa Baldauff, as it appears to be her style of writing, although it could have been someone else using the DPW’s BuzzFeed account.

While I’m not exactly fond of the DPW using party resources on domain names for the sole purpose of trolling GOP politicians, this is clearly payback for the Republicans buying up the “maryburke.com” domain name before Mary Burke announced that she was running in last year’s election for Governor of Wisconsin and using it to set up a webpage in order to, among other things, use my words to attack Burke without my permission.

Scott Walker has left Wisconsin with a massive budget deficit and a wrecked economy. Walker’s idea of a “revival” is turning America into a third-world country by handing out tax cuts to the rich, getting the U.S. involved in unjustified wars, and handing out corporate welfare to his cronies. That’s not a “revival”, that’s a destruction of American’s economy and reputation.

My video entry to the MAYDAYin30 video contest

I’ve decided to enter the MAYDAYin30 video contest that MAYDAY PAC, the Lawrence Lessig-led, crowd-funded SuperPAC that supports ending the culture of big-money politics in this country by, among other things, overturning the Citizens United v. FEC U.S. Supreme Court decision by a federal constitutional amendment.

My submission is a video supporting the campaign of Staci Appel, the Democratic U.S. House nominee in the 3rd Congressional District of Iowa. Appel, who has been endorsed by MAYDAY PAC. Staci supports amending the U.S. Constitution in order to overturn the Citizens United v. FEC U.S. Supreme Court decision and end the era of big-money campaigns and SuperPACs that can raise unlimited amounts of money from big-wig donors.

Here’s my video:

If you like my video and would like to see it aired as a TV ad on stations covering Central and Southwestern Iowa, you can vote for my video here!