Meet Larry Konz. He's the CEO of Konz Wood Products and a member of the 0.25% --people who contribute over $100 to Republican candidates. Over the last couple of years, his favorite candidates have been Senator Ron Johnson, to whom he gave $1,000, and Scott Walker, to whom he gave $225.

He's also recently been charged with the responsability of keeping an eye on Scott Walker's former top lieutenant, Tim Russell, who was recently granted a work release to spend most of his waking hours at Konz's company.
Russell's last pay stub from Konz Wood Products shows that he worked a 40 hour week, plus five hours of overtime. Considering that Konz allows employees a half hour for lunch and is located about a half hour from Russell's minimum security facility on the shores of Lake Winnebago, that means Russell spends from approximately 6:30 AM to 5 PM of his week days in service to Konz.

This is not the first of Walker's former aides involved in the John Doe scandal to land jobs with a Walker campaign contributor. Kelly Rindfleish, who was convicted of stealing tax payer resources for use on Scott Walker's campaign, landed a job with Michael Eisenga. Others, including Cynthia Archer, Brett Davis, Cullen Werwie, Keith Gilkes and Tom Nardelli landed jobs working for the State of Wisconsin.

Not a single former aide has testified against Walker or implicated him in the John Doe scandal. Russell, however, did say in a work release document that he thought he had "authorization" for the activities that landed him in prison, which suggests culpability on Walker's part since he was Russell's direct supervisor on both the campaign and the veterans fund, Operation Freedom.

Tips on Wisconsin child porn cases took years to investigate

In at least two cases, the Wisconsin Department of Justice took years to act on detailed and credible tips about online child pornography that had been referred by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, court records show.

As a result, a 19-year-old Milwaukee man with a history of sexual assault arrests was left free to allegedly molest a 15-year-old schoolmate, while a Pewaukee man who worked as a juvenile drug and alcohol counselor walked away with a nine-month work-release sentence that didn't require him to register as a sex offender.

Two special agents with the department's Division of Criminal Investigation were reassigned after Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporters asked questions about the cases, and officials began a review to determine whether other tips were mishandled.

Justice Department spokeswoman Dana Brueck said the two cases "reflect some level of staff negligence."

After several core group meetings in the weeks prior to the February 8th rally, organizers in Eau Claire held their first Moral Monday public meeting on Monday, February 24th, in the basement of the Unitarian Universalist Church at 421 S Farwell St. Over 40 people attended the meeting led by Unitarian Universalist Reverend Julie Lepp and progressive community activist Eleanor Wolf. The predetermined theme of the meeting was poverty and how we can begin to work together to find solutions.

Attendees included local elected officials, heads of non-profits, faith community leaders, and low income people who’ve been adversely effected in recent years by budget cuts to various social safety net programs. After breaking into small group discussions attendees voted on what the priorities of the emerging coalition should be, and settled on three issues: raising the minimum wage, eliminating chronic homelessness, and Medicaid/Badgercare expansion in Wisconsin. The group also decided to send individual emails to both Rev. William Barber and Rev. Curtis Gatewood of the HKonJ coalition asking them to come to Eau Claire to speak. The excitement in the room was palpable.

I spoke with two single mothers after the meeting and they both told me that they had to struggle to keep from crying throughout the evening. They said they’d never heard so many people talking so openly about poverty as a moral issue, and they were surprised that so many people were willing to come together to try to do something about it.

The next meeting date was set for Monday, March 24th, and everyone in the room was strongly encouraged to bring at least one new person with them. The single mothers I spoke with assured me that they’d be coming back in March, and that they’d be bringing others with them. As they say out in North Carolina, ” Forward together, not one step back! “

A tip of the hat is well deserved by Governor Scott Walker for officially changing his campaign slogan to "Convicted? No. Never Convicted." to honor the recent passing of Harold Ramis, who said the famous line in the 1981 movie, Stripes. Sources inside the Walker campaign say that are relieved to be just saying the line verbatim instead of trying to think-up weak substitutions when defending Walker's role in the John Doe scandal.

Many readers now wonder aloud why parent company Journal Communications continues to
damages its reputation of journalistic integrity by turning morning TMJ Radio over to the right-wing blathering of Charlie Sykes. But that was a ratings decision, not a news one. The justification remains that Sykes, like Rush Limbaugh, describes himself as an entertainer not a journalist. (Of course, he wants his opinions revered as hard commentary and he comes from a journalist background. In fact, I worked in the Journal newsroom when he was a reporter there, haranguing veterans with his ideas, which they found amusing or just quietly rolled their eyes. The general opinion was that he was likeable but not believable, and his father, the late journalist Jay Sykes, was more respected. So no wonder Charles moved on to pastures that would put him on a higher pedestal.)

Sykes’ ego has now led to a larger error. His Right Wisconsin, a website requiring paid subscription and full of his musings and those of others who claim journalistic credentials, including several right-wing bloggers JS has hired, was started by him to spread his journalism credentials and is actually owned by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Journal Communications, moving from mere employer of an entertainer to conspirator in right-wing journalistic thematics. That has destroyed the JS reputation for objectivity especially right now, as Walker falls into deeper disrepute through his own behavior as county executive.

...

“If you want to understand how closely tied Right Wisconsin is to the Walker team, do this: Go to the email records and do a search for the word Fraley, as in RW managing editor Brian Fraley, who worked with Kelly Rindfleisch back in the legislative caucus days. Then note that Fraley is involved in the email exchange that just led Gov. Walker -- apparently -- to fire DOT legal counsel John Schulze. Then turn on your radio and listen to Charlie Sykes argue against the Schulze's firing. It's a small and deeply intertwined world.”

...

There is not much that I or anyone else could add to this. But I would point out that the intertwining to which Noth speaks is even deeper than he reported. While it is true that the Journal Sentinel owns the website, it is funded - at least in part - by the Koch-funded Wisconsin Club for Growth.