Wisconsin's Dumb Governor May Have Fired a Doctor for Modeling Thongs

You can say a lot about Wisconsin Governor/amateur Shrek impersonator Scott Walker, but don’t accuse him of inconsistency. Since becoming governor in 2011, Walker has worked tirelessly to dismantle the state of Wisconsin’s legacy as one of the most worker and union friendly places in the United States by introducing the budget repair bill, a law that — among other things — stripped state employees of their collective bargaining rights and required them to pay 50% of their own pensions. Turns out, ruining people’s professional lives was nothing new for him. Walker’s efforts against the working person has a long and storied history that’s followed him throughout various political offices and degrees of consequence. Like this story back from 2010, for example, when Walker — then serving as Milwaukee county executive — requested that a capable medical doctor get fired “asap” because she once modeled skimpy underwear professionally.

This past Wednesday, over 27,000 emails were unsealed to reveal that Gov. Walker was directly tied to a secret email system that allowed members of his staff to covertly communicate and plan his gubernatorial campaign while on county executive time — a pretty big deal when you consider that using state funded hours to further your political career is both A.) illegal (six of his employees have been convicted of crimes in connection with the case) and B.) socially frowned upon. Walker maintains that he never used tax-payer money to further his campaign, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t in hot water.

As Emma Roller writes for Slate:

Wisconsin Democrats have been waiting for years for this shoe to drop. The Democratic Party of Wisconsin has been working to link Walker to Gov. Chris Christie since the Bridgegate scandal—Christie heads the Republican Governors Association, which has poured money into Wisconsin for attack ads against Walker’s gubernatorial opponent, Mary Burke.

Still, Walker’s story has gotten far less national media attention than Christie’s, probably because campaign malfeasance doesn’t make for quite as dramatic a scandal as a huge, unnecessary traffic jam. But the two cases bear striking similarities: two Republican governors with national profiles and national ambitions, allegedly using their public office to boost their political standing, all the while distancing themselves from the work their staffs sullied themselves with.

And now onto the slightly less important, but equally sleazy stuff — specifically the thong model-turned-doctor who may have lost her job because Walker was worried about how her “checkered” past and current employment at Milwaukee County Behavioral Health Division might negatively effect his political future.

Amanda Terkel at Huffington Post reports:

Walker learned about the problematic former thong model on April 5, 2010, when [former chief of staff Thomas] Nardelli emailed him about a woman who was hired as a doctor at the Milwaukee County Behavioral Health Division, which provides treatment for mental illness, substance use disorders and intellectual disabilities.

Nardelli said that the medical director had “failed to Google or MySpace” her, and it was “recently discovered that she has a checkered past and has done some modeling work.”

“It isn’t pornographic,” wrote Nardelli, “but it is quite suggestive (I’m told – I don’t know her name). He [sic] apparently models thongs and wasn’t forthright in sharing that with staff prior to her hire as an hourly paid MD at [Behavioral Health Division].”

Nardelli then informed Walker that the Behavior Health Division was looking to release the employee — who Nardelli describes as “competent” — “without much fanfare.” Walker, never even learning the doctor’s name, replied, “Get rid of the MD asap.”

Because the employee isn’t named in the emails, reporters were unable to confirm whether or not Walker and Co. ever succeeded in having her fired from the Milwaukee County Behavioral Health Division. We were able to confirm, however, that Walker sucks butt.