Selections from Al Capone
(editor’s note-deceased mobster and political scientist Al Capone
is a frequent contributor to The Inside Scoop)

posted 8/16/2009

Doyle’s Done
Statement from Al Capone
 

“Diamond Jim pulled yet another fast one by surprising the folks in Wisconsin telling them he doesn’t want to serve the people as governor after 2010.  What he didn’t say was that he was afraid to run again on his record. A bad economy, lost jobs, possible illegal activities involving his “legal” counsel, among other things have made the Guv nervous like and not wanting to face the voters of Wisconsin to lose in November 2010.  Instead of getting “hit” at the ballot box, Doyle prefers to go into early retirement.”

posted 2/17/09

Burrisjevich

by Al Capone

Illinois Senator Roland Burris is a good rememberer.  He remembers more and more every day.  Just the other day he re-remembered that he had forgotten what he couldn't recall about his talking to the insiders at Blago, Inc.  I have absolutely nothing to hide is the Burris spin of the day.  So does he have nothing to hide today, but had something to hide earlier?

What's causing the confusion here?  Burris is now stating that he does recall talking to Team Blago more than he said he did before.  The Feds now want to talk to him about his dealings with Blagojevich before the ex-governor with the coolest doo anointed him to the Senate.

Burris' efforts to clear things up nice like have actually created more of a confusing type of situation.  When asked if the Feds wanted to question him on the appointment to the Senate, he responded that he may have been contacted by the Feds even before he testified to the Illinois House panel on January 8 that recommended that Blago be gone-o.  His pallies in the Illinois House feel disrespected and are calling for a renewed investigation.

Channeling Bill Clinton, Burris defined his statements and how much he disclosed and when (my first affidavit contained this, my sworn testimony contained that).  Smooth move.  If he discloses all of his dealings with Blago's team before appointed to the Senate, he knows his appointment to the U.S. Senate would be put on ice.  So tell the story, but amend it later to tell the whole (at least more of the) story and still get the seat in the upper chamber.  Well played; politics in the great Chicago tradition.  Makes me proud.

So what does the future hold for Burris?  I think he skates after settling on a story and sticking to it.  I just hope he paid his taxes.

From Scoop # 52 October 26, 2007
posted 10/19/2007

Capone: Bad Form Diamond Jim
by Al Capone
 

With Halloween just around the corner, it appears that Diamond Jim has started scaring people a little early this year. I have to admit; it’s a thing of sheer beauty-scaring the most vulnerable folks in the community by telling those senior citizens there won’t be any money for their drug bills because his tax increase budget isn’t getting approved. Good old fashioned Chicago-style intimidation-nicely played. Unfortunately from my perspective, that’s about the only success the governor has had during the entire Wisconsin budget process.

Like me, Diamond Jim is obsessed with winning. All you have to do is look at the smear job he and his lieutenants carried out on Mark Green during the last election. However, unlike me he has let his obsession of “winning” start to cloud his political judgment. Can any of you’se Wisconsin types explain to me why the governor called for a special session and then reintroduced a tax-laden budget to the Legislature without having the votes to get it passed in the Republican-controlled Assembly? What’s that Wisconsin? Oh…you have an answer-I see. The answer is arrogance.

Being a political boss took a lot of moxie back in my day. Besides being a bully, you had to build relationships, horse-trade and yes, throw your opposition a bone every once every in awhile. It appears that Diamond Jim understands the bully part, but not much else.

And where was Diamond Jim awhile back when the Wisconsin State Assembly (led by that Elliot Ness kinda guy-Speaker Mike Huebsch) passed, with bipartisan support, Assembly Bills 506 and 507 funding schools and local governments? Doyle might as well have been on the other side of the planet. What’s that, he was? Oh, he was-in China.

Finally I have to admit that my favorite Diamond Jim tactic during this entire process has also been the most hypocritical. Liberals claim that privacy is paramount. Most even advocate an expansion of the Constitutional umbrella to protect privacy beyond what the Founders intended. So, when the heat was applied to University of Wisconsin-Madison officials to search private individual student records to find low-income students to participate in a press conference with Governor Doyle you would think some progressive type in the process would have raised a red flag and put an end to this blatant violation of privacy? But no, those champions of individual privacy, Team Doyle and UW, compromised, not on the budget, but on their principles as they searched individual private student records to find the governor some stagehands. Please, sign me up for the UW ethics course in which that was taught.

Overall, this is bad form Diamond Jim. I would have played it much differently.
 

From Scoop # 42 December 21, 2006
 

Diamond Jim’s Christmas Present to Wisconsin
by Al Capone
 

Merry Christmas to you’se and yours this holiday season!  It looks like Diamond Jim’s spin machine has to come up with some new way to continue to claim that he is balancing the budget.  With this new story and latest in a series of reports out about the true state of Wisconsin’s budget we see that Governor Doyle can not be trusted when talking about the real financial straits the State of Wisconsin is truly in at this current time. 

If my memory serves (and it is not as good as it used to be!) Diamond Jim was selling everyone the line that he had balanced the budget during this last campaign.  Just another of the many ‘truths’ uttered by the governor and issued by the Doyle machine that seem to lacking in one thing-honesty.

From Scoop # 39 October 16, 2006

 Slimy Strategy Reflections
by Al Capone

Tomorrow marks the 75^th anniversary of me being sentenced by the feds on a tax evasion rap.  Despite all the things that I did, ordered, knew about, gave the ok for, and orchestrated, the best the Feds could do was bust my chops for tax evasion.  Some free advice-don’t mess with the IRS.

In my day politics was not for the faint of heart.  Nothing was more fun than to have my goons take an upstanding goody-two-shoes and do a character hit on him so bad that even his family started to think he was no good.  Play my way or get out of the way (or, in some cases, I’ll get you out of the way).  And no one could prove I was pulling the strings-ah, those were the days. 

Being a boss I always operated my organization so as no one could put the finger on me when a dirty trick or two needed to be carried out.  Today I believe this is what we call ‘plausible deniability’.  Well it seems that there is a lot of plausible deniability going on in Madison these days, and it seems that the heavily investigated, but yet to be indicted Diamond Jim has taken a page out of my playbook. 

I mean really, the guy running against Diamond Jim goes out and offers a clean campaign agreement and plays by the rules when it comes to transferring some cash.  However Diamond Jim attacks this guy unmercifully for months with slimy accusations on TV and then has his lieutenants work to influence votes and watches one of the team take the rap for Travelgate.  He goes as far as to try convincing voters that his opponent broke the law.  What a piece of work-I couldn’t have done it better myself in Chicago.

However, what was standard practice 75+ years ago in Chicago is not what works today.  Diamond Jim knows that in a turnout election he’s a goner.  His own base of support isn’t doing cartwheels over his re-election prospects and the people of Wisconsin have a little more moxie than 1920s Chicagoans-they see through the lies and the lack of vision for and belief in Wisconsin.  

Polling shows that this race is close and that the momentum is with Doyle’s challenger.  Like my career came to an end 75 years ago look for Diamond Jim’s political career to end November 7^th.

From Scoop # 34 June 26, 2006

Scarface to Diamond Jim
“Pay to Play is the Way”
by Al Capone

Wisconsin has a dandy in Diamond Jim Doyle.  This guy has friends and staff do his dirty work-good job takin’ a hit for the team Georgia Thompson.!

One of the jurors in the Doyle administration’s bid-rigging scandal trial isn’t buying Jim Doyle’s story either.  Jim Doyle insists that Georgia Thompson rigged the bid for one of his campaign donors on her own.  However, one of the jurors that sat through days of testimony in the Travelgate trial says otherwise. 

Juror Marvin Bizzelle of Milwaukee told both WTMJ Radio and WKOW TV that he felt Thompson didn’t act alone.  Bizelle told WTMJ: “Yes, there was no doubt about that.  Someone above her was involved in it, but they know how to keep their hands out of it so they don’t get charged with it,” he said.  

Welcome to Chicago!

Back in my day, politicians were on the take today its called pay to play.  Whatever you call it, it’s a thing that is beautiful-you get the money and you skate on the blame.  First you have people voting early and often in Wisconsin during the elections and now this.  It’s not just Door County that is Chicago North.

For you’se people’s amusement I thought I’d include a partial list of the pay for play that has happened during Diamond Jim’s tenure.  I hope you’re as proud of the guv as I am.  By the way, note the Chicago connection in one of the bullets.

• A member of Jim Doyle’s administration was convicted of two felony counts of steering a bid to a big money campaign donor. Adelman Travel should have lost the bid under the state’s bidding process, but $20,000 in campaign cash seems to have put them over the top. Doyle finally cancelled the bid, but has continued to keep the campaign money. (WSJ 1/25/06)

• At least seven companies who received no-bid contracts from Jim Doyle donated $32,050 to his campaign (AP 2/14/06)

• Utility executives donated $43,650 to get Doyle’s Public Service Commission to reverse an earlier decision and allow the sale of a nuclear power plant. State investigators interviewed PSC employees for several hours about the deal. Two of the three PSC members are Doyle appointees, one is married to his campaign fundraiser…another former PSC high ranking staffer is now working on the governor’s campaign. (WJS 5/10/06, MJS 12/21/05, GB PG 12/29/05)

• Personal injury attorneys donated $20,500 to Doyle’s campaign the same month that Doyle vetoed a bill limiting their access to jackpot juries in medical malpractice cases (WSJ 2/21/06)

• According to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, Crowe Chizek secured a $6.7 million deal from Doyle and shortly after, proceeded to donated $17,500 to the governor’s re-election bid. Equis donated $27,250 to Doyle around the time they were awarded a deal from the state that paid them $2.6 million plus expenses including an unheard of 25% cut on property they sell for the state. According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, most real estate firms usually get less than 10% in similar deals. (TCT 3/27/06, MJS 3/27/06)

• A yacht making company donated $5,000 to Doyle’s campaign right around the time it received a $2.1-million state grant. (AP 2/2/06)

• Jim Doyle continues to hang on up to $45,000 from an improper fundraiser organized by DOT employees. (MJS 11/10/05)

• A Hollywood producer gave Doyle $10,000 just weeks after Doyle issued a $250,000 grant in that producer’s name for a pet cause. (MJS 2/13/02)

• Gambling interests funneled one million dollars in the weeks before the 2002 election through the Democratic Party to skirt Wisconsin’s campaign laws. The Party then spent most of that money on campaign ads for Doyle. Doyle then rewarded those gambling interests with unlimited, lifetime compacts. (MJS 2/20/03)

• According to The Journal-Sentinel, Governor Doyle’s administration awarded an $18.4-million contract for work on the Marquette Interchange to Chicago’s CTE Engineers in February 2005. Shortly after this, the governor holds an out-of-state fundraiser with CTE and 3 of its partners in the contract that nets him $20,000. Doyle’s campaign also netted another $12,000 from other Chicago area contributors that same day. The paper pointed out that most of those donors had never donated before. One donor admitted to not even knowing who the governor of Wisconsin is. (MJS 1/28/06)

• A major insurance company donated $28,500 to Doyle’s campaign to get the governor to turn a blind eye to a controversial merger that created the largest health insurer in the United States. Several other states objected to the merger, campaign cash helped make sure Wisconsin did not. (MJS 2/5/05)
 

 From Scoop # 28 December 20, 2005

Freeze!
By Al Capone

Merry Christmas to all you readers of The Inside Scoop!  I enjoy sharing my insightful thoughts about Diamond Jim Doyle with you on-and-off and since its Christmas season, I thought I’d talk freeze, as in property tax freeze.

Diamond Jim has been telling anyone who will listen that he froze your property taxes this year.  He’s even had his friends at the teacher’s union shell out big bucks to tell you he’s ‘frozen’ property taxes on the tube.  W.R. Alger once wrote, “every man is his own greatest dupe,” and for Doyle to think the majority of the peoples of Wisconsin believe he has truly frozen property taxes, well...in Chicago we call that ‘cookin’ the books’.

His claim to have frozen property taxes is probably the most over-hyped event going since Geraldo Rivera cracked my personal vault back in ’86.  His veto of Republican legislation that would have truly frozen taxes is probably the biggest hit to a property owner’s personal vault that has occurred in Wisconsin in quite some time.  People that pay attention see through this type of thing.  In my world, this type of ‘sell-job’ is bad for political business and doesn’t help your long-term political health much either.  No wonder Diamond Jim is in such a vulnerable position going into 2006.
 

From Scoop # 23 August 16, 2005

“Teacher’s Union Slips Republicans Television ‘Mickey’ by Crediting Doyle for Republican Budget Initiatives” Capone
by Rick Sense

Deceased mobster, political scientist and frequent Inside Scoop contributor Al Capone recently weighed-in on WEAC’s airing of pro-Doyle campaign style television commercials.

“Diamond Jim busts me up.  He gets his friends at the teachers’ union to produce and run commercials, all on their dime.  And they give him credit for all the creative stuff the Republicans proposed on top of it.  WEAC makes us political types from Chicago envious,” remarked Capone.

The Republican property tax freeze and Representative Loeffelholz’s Social Security tax cut initiative have now become Doyle ‘leadership staples’ in the advertisements.

“Wisconsin has a dandy in Diamond Jim Doyle.  This guy has friends and staff do his dirty work-voter fraud, campaign commercials that don’t do a good enough job telling who put them on the tube and medical waste ‘hits’ by staffers and almost no one in the ‘independent mainstream press’ bothers to check into it.  I sure would have loved Wisconsin’s ‘watch dog’ media types working the Chicago beat in my day,” stated Capone.

Capone believes that Doyle’s luck is going to change.  “I hope Diamond Jim enjoys the ride now.  When people start seeing their property tax bills in December and see Wisconsin’s deficit continue to rise-they’ll start asking questions that he won’t want to have to answer and won’t be able to ‘silence’,” commented Capone.