Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Time To Wake Up

By Jeff Simpson

 I remain just one thing, and one thing only, and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.
There has been a distrubing trend lately in Wisconsin and national politics.  We have been holding every other position in society to a higher standard than politicians.   
Case in point, The highest ranking Republican in the Assembly,Robin Vos, recently pointed out that the Milwaukee Bucks will have a hard time getting any help legislatively because their owner, Marc Lasry, was seen greeting President Obama when he visited MilwaukeeBoss Vos has decided that the well being of Wisconsin, and especially 600,000 plus Milwaukeans, takes a back seat to filling his campaign coffers.    
The statement by Vos was borderline illegal, highly unethical, petty, childish and plain ignorant there will be no repercussions.   Except for some random columnists scolding Mr. Vos, there will be no suspensions, penalties, disorderly conduct, inquiries, investigations or even reprimands. For those scoring at home, this means that Mr. Lasry had better ante up.   
Former Republican Majority leader and current Representative of the 97th DIstrict(Waukesha) of Wisconsin, Bill Kramer was recently sentenced to five months in jail. Mr. Kramer was originally charged with two counts of sexual assault, was given a sweet plea deal by his good friend and our Republican Attorney General elect Brad Schimel's office, to be able to plead no contest to one charge of fourth degree sexual assault.  
Mr. Kramer was also apparently allowed to use his campaign funds to pay for his lawyers in this case despite that being against the law.  While the charges were ugly, the sentence was light. Mr. Kramer now will be paid handsomely by the taxpayers of Wisconsin, while he sits in jail and also will receive his Cadillac Benefits along with a full pension.  Look for Mr. Kramer to emerge from jail and join the ranks of "school choice" lobbyists in Madison.  
In yet another case of truth being stranger than fiction, the person that the Republicans chose to replace Mr. Kramer was Jim Steineke(R-Kaukana) to be the new Majority leader. While Mr. Steineke does not have sexual assault on his resume, it is about the only crime missing.   Steineke has a past filled with criminal trespass, obstructing police and too many driving citations to list.   To be fair, this former real estate agent and proponent of limited government, has not had multiple citations for breaking the law since 2010. However this resume has allowed him to be promoted to a position of leadership in the Republican party, and by his own words "he mentors new representatives and their staff". 
I guess if it works for Frank Abagnale, it can work for Jim Steineke.  
Now contrast these stories to a Kindergarten teacher from Germantown.  At a county fair this summer, completely off the clock, destroyed a couple Scott Walker campaign signs.  This teacher was rightly charged with disorderly conduct and given a $169.00 ticket(which she has paid).   
This teacher, for the act of destroying a few cardboard signs, has been the subject ofnumerous stories a political witchhunt(For those scoring at home, number of stories said website did on this sign destroying incident - 7, number of stories about all incidences involving Vos, Kramer, Steineke listed above - 0)on Michael Grebe funded "investigative" websites since the incident happened.   By the way, the teacher involved is STILL SUSPENDED.   
Do we really think that Sexual asault or pay to play shakedowns by politicians are less important to the general populace than someone destroying political signs?  
As the late great Molly Ivins once wrote:
Oh, just that your life is at stake.
What stuns me most about contemporary politics is not even that the system has been so badly corrupted by money. It is that so few people get the connection between their lives and what the bozos do in Washington and our state capitols. "I'm just not interested in politics." "They're all crooks." "Nothing I can do about it, I'm just one person. I can't buy influence."
Politics is not a picture on a wall or a television sitcom you can decide you don't much care for. Is the person who prescribes your eyeglasses qualified to do so? How deep will you be buried when you die? What textbooks are your children learning from at school? What will happen if you become seriously ill? Is the meat you're eating tainted? Will you be able to afford to go to college or to send your kids? Would you like a vacation? Expect to retire before you die? Can you find a job? Drive a car? Afford insurance? Is your credit card company or your banker or your broker ripping you off? It's all politics, Bubba.
You don't get to opt out for lack of interest.
Maybe if we could see who these people truly are during non-election season, we would be in a hurry to make bacon out of the politicians and not be swayed by the millions of dollars of ads that the outside groups spend putting lipstick on their pigs!  
Nothing would scare the politicians and lobbyists in Madison more, than all of us paying attention.    


1 comment:

  1. As I once heard a certain president say "Elections have Consequences" or "we won you lost" funny how you always forget these quotes.

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