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I’ve been doing my best to keep up with all of Senator John McCain’s flip-flops on a whole host of issues throughout the course of his Presidential campaign, and let me tell you, it’s been hard work. McCain’s flip-flopped more during this campaign than John Kerry could have ever hoped to, and there’s still four months left until election day.

During an appearance on the Today Show this morning, McCain was asked about his previous statement that he doesn’t understand economics well. The exact quote is:

“The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should. I’ve got Greenspan’s book.”

The quote itself comes from a Boston Globe article from December 2007. Now despite the fact that McCain has admitted he doesn’t understand economics that well, he’s now attempting to rewrite the past. During his appearance on the Today Show, McCain flatly denied ever having said the economy wasn’t his cup of tea, and he went on to say, “I’m very strong on the economy. I understand it. I have a lot more experience than my opponent.”

Once again the Straight Talk Express has gone off the tracks, and instead we’re left with the Double Talk Express, and I’ve come to the realization that John McCain circa 2008 will say or do anything to win this election, principles be damned.

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First of all, many thanks to Cindy Kilkenny over at Fairly Conservative for all her hard work to help break this story and bring to light a gross abuse of taxpayer dollars, not to mention a willful violation of state employee leave policies.

As first reported by Cindy, it’s been confirmed Kevin Fischer, a legislative aide in State Senator Mary Lazich’s office, used more vacation time in 2007 than he was allotted. In fact, Fischer used up 46 more hours of vacation than what he was allotted, which given his yearly salary, equates to roughly $2,000 in pay (if my math is correct). In other words, Kevin Fischer milked the taxpayers of Wisconsin for more than $2,000 worth of pay for vacation time he wasn’t entitled to take. What’s more, this isn’t the first year Kevin Fischer has overused (abused) the vacation time allotted to him, as Fischer went negative on vacation hours in 2006, too, to the tune of 46 more hours that had to be returned in 2007.

Here’s the real money quote from Cindy’s blog entry:

Kevin Fischer likes his vacation time. Let’s hope 2008 is a little more true to what he earns. The Senate administrator that just gave me a call indicates they are doing their best to tighten up these policies. He also indicates that there are very few employees that have this much trouble keeping their vacation resources in check.

First of all, I’m of the belief this is a little more than an employee having “trouble” keeping his or her vacation resources in check. I don’t know about Kevin Fischer’s paychecks, but most other state employees get an updated accounting of their leave balances with each new paycheck stub they receive, so there’s absolutely no excuse for a state employee not being able to keep track of how much vacation, personal, or sick leave time they have, other than willful disregard of course. However, while I believe Kevin Fischer should be held responsible for his continued pattern of abuse of the state’s vacation leave policies, I’m not holding my breath, simply because he’s been allowed to continue to abuse his vacation leave time by his supervisor, who seems oblivious - or unconcerned - about his abuses.

State employees are disciplined all the time for these kinds of abuses of their leave time, and I can only hope Kevin Fischer is held accountable in some way for his chronic abuse of his vacation time.

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If I remember correctly, Scott Walker was elected to serve as County Executive largely on the promise he’d rectify the scandal-ridden quagmire that had become the county’s pension system.

And yet, all these years later, we’re still hearing tales about a stunning lack of oversight over the county’s pension system:

Milwaukee County pension officials say they mistakenly overpaid former House of Correction superintendent Richard Cox and will seek a refund of more than $100,000 - one of 115 newly discovered pension payout errors.

The disclosure comes in a new filing with the IRS that admits numerous systemic mistakes caused pension overpayments and underpayments from 1994 through the present. The county is seeking refunds in some cases.

Necessary reviews of payouts were left undone and the county’s own pension laws were not followed in the various cases, says the IRS “voluntary correction” filing. It comes nine months after a Journal Sentinel investigation of county “buyback” pension benefits prompted a similar admission to the IRS.

…

The total price tag on the mistakes has not been determined, but could approach $1 million including pensioners’ and the county’s liability, according to estimates based on the county’s filing.

So let’s recap:

• 115 newly discovered pension payout errors? Thank you, Scott Walker!
• Laws not being followed? Thank you, Scott Walker!
• Liability approaching one million dollars? Thank you, Scott Walker!
• General lack of oversight over Milwaukee County’s pension system, despite promises to clean things up? Thank you, Scott Walker!

Scott Walker’s failure to clean up and fix Milwaukee County’s pension system is just another in a long line of promises he’s broken, and that’s why it’s time for new leadership for Milwaukee County.

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So says Walker campaign staffer Tim Russell, in talking about the following ad that’s been all over the airwaves in the past week or so:

Now sure, it’s a pretty decent ad, but as Greg Borowski of the MJS reported, the ad’s not really that unique, borrowing heavily from a theme most recently used by former Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist during his 2000 re-election campaign. However, when prompted by a “longtime political observer,” Borowski queried the Walker campaign to find out if any of the folks featured in Walker’s ad were paid actors, as opposed to being the “real citizens” the ad portrays them to be. The Walker campaign’s response?
“They’re all real people,” Tim Russell of the Walker campaign said. “They’re all real people” - seems pretty unambiguous, right?

It sure does, except that it’s not really true. After Borowski posted his story, Tim Russell fired off an email clarifying his assertion that all the individuals in the ad were “real people.”

“I did not intend to say that none of the people in the ad were talent. Our
agency had talent on hand for the taping in case our volunteers didn’t
work out. We had a couple that got stage fright and were replaced
with people the agency had on hand. I apologize if I was unclear in
my answer.”

Unclear is one thing, but Russell seemed pretty clear and unambiguous when he said none of the individuals in the ad were “real people.” Instead of trying to explain away his lie, Russell should have the gumption to simply fess up and admit he lied, instead of trying to spin his comments as him “not being clear.”

H/T to xoff.

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