Scott Walker Gives $81,500 Government Job To Top Donor’s 26-Year-Old College Dropout Son
Since taking office in January, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has stripped public workers of their collective bargaining rights, proposed wage cuts to local government employees, and insisted that his “state is broke” and that its public workers are overpaid. But Walker applies a different standard to himself.
Today, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reveals that Walker is using state funds to pay more than $81,500 a year to the 26-year-old son of a major campaign donor with no college degree and two drunken-driving convictions.
Despite having almost no management experience, UW Madison college dropout Brian Deschane now oversees state environmental and regulatory issues and manages dozens of Commerce Department employees. After only two months on the job, Deschane has already received a 26 percent pay raise and a promotion.
Deschane’s father, Jerry Deschane was a major financial backer of the Governor’s campaign:
Jerry Deschane, executive vice president and longtime lobbyist for the Madison-based Wisconsin Builders Association…bet big on Walker during last year’s governor’s race.
The group’s political action committee gave $29,000 to Walker and his running mate, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, last year, making it one of the top five PAC donors to the governor’s successful campaign. Even more impressive, members of the trade group funneled more than $92,000 through its conduit to Walker’s campaign over the past two years.
Total donations: $121,652.
Deschanes’ father admitted that during the gubenatorial campaign he may have put in “good words” for his son with Walker campaign manager (and current chief of staff) Keith Gilkes. A state official has confirmed that Gilkes “recommended Deschane for an interview at the agency.” Michael McCabe, the executive director of the Wisconsin democracy Campaign, said the appointment had “all the markings of political patronage.”
In the coming months, we may be seeing more cases of Brian Deschanes. The anti-union law Walker signed last month also included provisions that would convert more than thirty-seven civil service positions into political appointees chosen by the Governor.
I guess this is Republican style affirmative action.
"This statement, in its utterly clueless hubristic stupidity, cannot be improved upon. I merely quote it in admiration of its perfection." - Garibaldi
"Problem is, while the Germans have had many mea culpas and quite painfully dealt with their history, the South is still hellbent on painting themselves as the real victims. It gives them a special place in the history of assholes" - Covenant
"Over three million died fighting for the emperor, but when the war was over he pretended it was not his responsibility. What kind of man does that?'' - Saburo Sakai
Nah, it's just Scott Walker channeling the 19th Century. A heady time, where employers bargained with employees attempting to organize by hiring scabs and then shooting the protesters. Where government positions were handed out as spoils to the backers of whichever political machine had swept into office. Where government worked for the wealthy industrialist robber-barons. Scott Walker is just supporting his constituency . . . the people who purchased the votes needed for him to take office.
More fuel for the fire. I'm sure this will feature prominently in the recall efforts against this tool. Hopefully the people of Wisconsin have learned a lesson...
State environmental and regulatory issues? Those things that Republicans hate almost as much as scocialism and the middle class? Who better to put in charge of the department than a definitively unqualified pillock?
evilsoup wrote:Ah man, all he needs is to be caught with an underage prostitute, and this man can be America's Silvio Berlusconi.
What a guy! God Bless America!
Why 'god bless America' ? This isn't representative of what the ideals of America are or should be.
They say, "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." I suppose it never occurred to them that they are the tyrants, not the patriots. Those weapons are not being used to fight some kind of tyranny; they are bringing them to an event where people are getting together to talk. -Mike Wong
But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
Conveying sarcasm through the medium of text requires time and practice. Give him time, he'll get the hang of it.
There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
Replace "ginger" with "n*gger," and suddenly it become a lot less funny, doesn't it?
-- fgalkin
Wis. gov reverses appointment Dems called cronyism
Wisconsin's Republican Gov. Scott Walker has reversed the promotion of a 27-year-old son of a lobbyist whose appointment to an $81,500 administration job sparked cronyism claims by Democrats.
By SCOTT BAUER
Associated Press
MADISON, Wis. —
Wisconsin's Republican Gov. Scott Walker has reversed the promotion of a 27-year-old son of a lobbyist whose appointment to an $81,500 administration job sparked cronyism claims by Democrats.
Walker's spokesman Cullen Werwie said in a statement Tuesday that Brian Deschane will return to his previous $65,000 job with the Department of Regulation and Licensing just two days after the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel first reported his hiring and promotion.
It's the latest chapter in the ongoing showdown between Walker and Democratic legislators, including senators who fled the state on Feb. 17 to temporarily delay a vote on a bill ending most union rights for public workers.
Deschane had been promoted to head up a division within the Commerce Department that oversees environmental and regulatory matters and dozens of employees even though he has no college degree and little management experience.
His division was scheduled to be moved from Commerce back to DRL under a restructuring proposed by Walker.
Werwie says when Walker learned of the staffing decision, he ordered that Deschane be put back in his original job as bureau director of board services within DRL. He got that job after being recommended for it by Walker's chief of staff.
Werwie said a replacement for the post he is vacating will be named soon.
The announcement of his demotion came just minutes after Assembly Democrats proposed eliminating his $81,500 position altogether.
"This is the problem with cronyism," said Democratic Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca. "This is it, right here."
Republicans rejected the proposal just before Walker announced the demotion.
Deschane is the son of Jerry Deschane, a longtime lobbyist for the Madison-based Wisconsin Builders Association. The group's political action committee gave $29,000 to the campaigns of Walker and his running mate, putting it among the campaign's top donors.
The Journal Sentinel reported that members of the trade group also funneled more than $92,000 to Walker's campaign over the past two years, bringing the contribution total to $121,652.
The chief of staff who hired this clown should be fired for even considering such a hire.
FSTargetDrone wrote:The chief of staff who hired this clown should be fired for even considering such a hire.
I'm sure he's being set up to fall on his own sword even as we text...
When ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets.
—Abraham Lincoln
People pray so that God won't crush them like bugs.
—Dr. Gregory House
Oil an emergency?! It's about time, Brigadier, that the leaders of this planet of yours realised that to remain dependent upon a mineral slime simply doesn't make sense.
—The Doctor "Terror Of The Zygons" (1975)
How can this retard have a $65,000 job without any skills whatsoever? With the economic situation in America, surely there are many unemployed people with skill sets and more experience than this shithead?
"This statement, in its utterly clueless hubristic stupidity, cannot be improved upon. I merely quote it in admiration of its perfection." - Garibaldi
"Problem is, while the Germans have had many mea culpas and quite painfully dealt with their history, the South is still hellbent on painting themselves as the real victims. It gives them a special place in the history of assholes" - Covenant
"Over three million died fighting for the emperor, but when the war was over he pretended it was not his responsibility. What kind of man does that?'' - Saburo Sakai
bobalot wrote:How can this retard have a $65,000 job without any skills whatsoever? With the economic situation in America, surely there are many unemployed people with skill sets and more experience than this shithead?
It's called "A Rich Daddy", and it's how the Republicans want the world to work.
The great secret of getting into the workforce is not that working hard and having a lot of references will always get you ahead, but that knowing someone who is already working and likes you will. What you know is very seldom as important as who you know.
For people like me who frequently forget who they know, this is a frustrating and agonizing fact.
Commander of the MFS Darwinian Selection Method (sexual)
It's why I jumped for my current job despite being only halfway through my degree, and that studying parttime would more than double how long it took to graduate when a family friend recommended me for an IT job.
"Okay, I'll have the truth with a side order of clarity." ~ Dr. Daniel Jackson.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." ~ Stephen Colbert
"One Drive, One Partition, the One True Path" ~ ars technica forums - warrens - on hhd partitioning schemes.
What a guy! God Bless America!
Commander of the MFS Darwinian Selection Method (sexual)
