Vance Looking for Fraud
The White House Is Always the Last Place Vance Looks
Vice President JD Vance was in Milwaukee on Wednesday warning about fraud. Yes, it is ironic, but nobody should ever think anyone in President Donald Trump’s Administration understands irony.
Specifically, Vance was campaigning for Republicans in Wisconsin, such as gubernatorial candidate Congressman Tom Tiffany, while warning about the dangers of fraud.
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“We’ve got a party that is fighting for fraud and a party that is fighting against fraud,” Vance told a crowd at the hanger of the Wisconsin Air National Guard's 128th Air Refueling wing, according to the New York Times. “This is not about better or worse policy. This is about who is supporting fraudsters and who is supporting you.”
Pretty funny coming from a guy who is currently the warm bucket of {spit} to Trump, a man with 34 felony convictions for falsifying business records. Maybe Vance should be looking a bit closer to home, where Trump made $2.2 billion from his cryptocurrency schemes, according to Reuters, while investors lost $2.3 billion.
One company, World Liberty Financial, was started by the Trump family just before he took office for his second term. According to The Guardian, the United Arab Emirates invested a half billion dollars into the company for a 49% share. Shortly after, Trump ignored security concerns and allowed the United Arab Emirates to buy artificial intelligence computer chip technology. Another Trump venture, American Bitcoin, despite no money invested according to Reuters, generated $987 million for the Trump family, and possibly as much as $1.4 billion. Outside investors have lost more than $200 million.
But Vance is focused on what really matters, going after someone who was investigated by the Biden Administration Justice Department, and then trying to grab the credit.
According to the New York Times:
Midway through his 37-minute appearance, Mr. Vance held up a large poster of Markita Barnes, a woman in Wisconsin who was convicted in March on 10 counts of health care fraud for stealing $2.3 million from a Medicaid benefit program meant to help at-risk pregnant women and women with young children. Ms. Barnes was initially indicted in 2023, during the Biden administration, but in his remarks, Mr. Vance accused Democrats of defending her.
Vance and Tiffany each took turns criticizing Governor Tony Evers, the Democratic incumbent who is not running for re-election, for not sharing the list of SNAP recipients in Wisconsin with the federal government.
In fact, Wisconsin is one of just nine states that won’t have to pay a penalty to the federal government for erroneous payments made in the SNAP program. If Vance is looking for fraud, he should look a little closer to home.
But Wisconsin is a state that’s being investigated for another type of fraud, and it prompted the city of Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson to invite Vance to tour the Milwaukee Election Commission offices in an effort to kill the federal investigation into non-existent vote fraud from the 2020 presidential election.
Vance, in turn, said on stage that “some guy” was protesting too much that there is no evidence of vote fraud in Milwaukee causing the 2020 presidential election to be swayed. He compared vote fraud to a small child stealing cookies and then denying it.
Johnson wasn’t buying it:
Vance should take Johnson up on his offer, if only to learn about how Republicans in the state of Wisconsin blocked a bill that would have allowed local clerks to count the absentee ballots the day before an election. As a result, we’re looking at another late night in Milwaukee before all of the votes can be counted.
But Republicans like Vance, Tiffany, and Trump will be able to yell, “fraud!” once again, even though there is no evidence.
RIP Paul Farrow
The news was long expected but still stunning to read. Waukesha County Executive Paul Farrow passed away on Tuesday from a rare form of cancer diagnosed in September 2024. He was 61 years old.
When news of Farrow’s death was announced by Waukesha County, the late county executive received bipartisan praise for his public service. From Democratic Governor Tony Evers and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, to Republicans such as Congressman Scott Fitzgerald and state Rep. Scott Allen, Farrow was liked and respected.
I had different reasons for liking Farrow.
Farrow was a column-generating machine when I was writing a local newspaper column about politics. It was not because of some scandal or controversy. It was because when he ran for office, he left a wake of special elections behind him.
In 2010, Farrow won the scheduled election for state Assembly after state Rep. Ann Nischke (R) did not run for re-election. He held that office until he won a special election for state Senate in 2012. Because it was a special election, the special primary fell on the same day as the general election for state Assembly. So Farrow won the Assembly seat, then won the Senate seat and resigned the Assembly seat, causing a special election. Then Farrow ran for Waukesha County Executive in 2015, causing a special election for his state Senate seat.
When I mentioned how much I enjoyed covering the special elections, Farrow said he was thinking about resigning as County Executive and going through the whole process again. Then he thought better of his plan, saying the local clerks running those elections had enough. Too bad, because he was one of the quickest wits I’ve met in politics. Covering him going through the different elected offices again would have been very entertaining.
During one of those campaigns to fill a seat he vacated (I won’t say which), Farrow was definitely a bad influence on this columnist. He sat next to me during the candidate debate making jokes about his potential successors. I thought I was bad, but I could barely keep a straight face as I sat there with my notebook, half listening to the candidates and half listening to Farrow.
Farrow’s quick wit about politics was probably part natural sense of humor, part how seriously he took public service. The absurdities of local government must’ve just leapt out at him, even as he successfully served as County Executive for eleven years. During that time, Waukesha County was a model of low taxes while maintaining essential services, conservative government at its best.
Prior to becoming Waukesha County Executive, Farrow was part of the Republican takeover of the state legislature that resulted in the Act 10 reforms. According to a report from the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty last fall, the fiscal impact of the Act 10 reforms for local and county governments is $480 million annually.
It was that commitment to conservative government that made him so popular with the voters in Waukesha County.
Farrow was also popular with the community because he was such a highly visible presence, almost to the end. My wife Doreen Wigderson recently saw him at a “block build” event where a charitable organization, Revitalize Milwaukee, was making free home repairs in the city of Waukesha for veterans and those who could not afford to pay for their own repairs.
Farrow told Doreen that being at that kind of activity was not what his doctors would have wanted, but he wouldn’t have missed it.
Our family will remember fondly how Farrow would participate in the Village of Wales Municipal Chili Cook-off, a charity food drive event. By popular vote, is chili won in his category in 2013.
However, Farrow was not everyone’s favorite politician. Despite Waukesha County being a rare exception in Wisconsin in not imposing a sales tax, Farrow was criticized by some Republican talk radio hosts, including WISN’s former afternoon host Mark Belling, for not lowering taxes even further. It became a running joke between Farrow and I whenever we bumped into each other how Belling was sure Farrow was a closet liberal.
(Belling posted on Twitter, “Paul Farrow will be remembered as one of the most significant leaders in Waukesha County history. A terrible loss.”)
While serving as the state party chairman for the Wisconsin GOP during the 2022 election cycle, Farrow became the target of those who saw any elected Republicans as “the establishment.” One Republican candidate for governor that year, Kevin Nicholson, even promised if he won to remove Farrow as party chairman.
"Paul Farrow is not going to be the party chair. And I'll swear by it," Nicholson said at a Republican event in Manitowoc County, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
However, Nicholson was driven from the race by a more MAGA candidate, businessman Tim Michels, who promised to try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Farrow served as chairman through the November 2022 midterm election that saw the re-election of Sen. Ron Johnson (R), but also the re-election of the Democrat Tony Evers as governor of Wisconsin.
In recent years, Farrow became more critical of the Republican-controlled legislature for failing to send more money to Waukesha County as shared revenue despite the amount of money the county sends to the state. He was also frustrated by the unwillingness of Republicans representing Waukesha County in the legislature to even show an interest in the issue.
Farrow was especially frustrated when Republicans, from talk radio commentators to even former Governor Scott Walker, opposed a plan to enact a sales tax for Waukesha County. The revenue from the tax, which Farrow always opposed proposing before, would have been split between the county and local governments. County Board members panicked when it was resisted, and Farrow withdrew the plan.
But despite the failure, Farrow continued - even in poor health - to warn that unless Waukesha County received more shared revenue from the state, taxes were either going to go up or the county’s commitment to public safety was going to go down.
This revenue shortfall will be the challenge to Farrow’s successor, to be elected in -you guessed it - a special election. Somewhere in Heaven, Farrow is laughing that he caused another one.
However, for his community, his numerous friends, his family, and his wife Amy, Farrow’s death is a tremendous loss. Someone else will hold his office, but Farrow can never be replaced. May he rest in peace.
James Wigderson is a writer living in Waukesha, Wisconsin. He is the former editor/owner of RightWisconsin and a former columnist for The Waukesha Freeman. Once described as “the spokesman for the state’s far right,” by the Capital Times, Wigderson is now a critic of the new Republican Party under President Donald Trump.