Well well…to the surprise of absolutely no one, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (aka Koch Brothers’ favorite errand boy) has squeezed into the GOP’s presidential campaign clown car.
Walker’s positions were summarized by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich:
1. On immigration, Walker says he’s changed his mind on a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants and no longer supports the idea. He’s expressed skepticism toward legal immigration as well.
2. On gay marriage, Walker is calling for a constitutional amendment allowing states to ban it.
3. On abortion rights, Walker is pushing for a 20-week ban in Wisconsin with no exceptions for rape or incest. (In 2014 he told voters his previous legislation left “the final decision to a woman and her doctor.”)
4. On “gun rights,” Walker is against any attempt to ban assault weapons or limit the ability of anyone to own a gun.
5. On labor unions, he is the GOP’s most virulent anti-labor candidate, having taken on teachers and other public employees and signing a “right-to-work” law. (He says his battles with labor leaders have prepared him to take on the Islamic State.)
6. He favors tax cuts over deficit reduction and public education. His most recent Wisconsin budget cuts taxes, requires steep cuts to education, and deepens the state deficit.
7. He has tried to weaken Wisconsin’s “open records” law by blocking press requests that have yielded some embarrassing finds in the past.
Reich omits Walker’s persistent attacks on higher education– his sneering dismissal of scholarly endeavors and his ongoing effort to make the University of Wisconsin focus upon job-training to the exclusion of the life of the mind. (He also fails to mention the criminal investigations that have been triggered by charges of serious wrongdoing.)
So how has Wisconsin fared under the administration of this paragon of the far Right?
The Pew Charitable Trust recently reported that Wisconsin has had the largest decline of any state in the percentage of families considered “middle class,” or those earning between 67 and 200 percent of their state’s median income.
In 2000, 54.6 percent of Wisconsin families fell into the middle class category but that has fallen to 48.9 percent in 2013, according to U.S. Census figures compiled by Pew.
All other states showed some decline but none as great as Wisconsin’s 5.7 percent figure.
Wisconsin ranks dead last among the 50 states in terms of a shrinking middle class, with real median household incomes there falling 14.7 percent since 2000.
I assume he’ll run on his record….
That is what you can expect from someone that finished high school and never finished college. This is the GOP today.
Walker’s story should inform of the bankruptcy of actual results obtained by effectively following conservative political instincts as did the reign of Bush II and so many of their contemporaries. They have been effective poliiticians in terms of getting things done. But what they got done benefited no one. It’s not apparent to me that even their boss benefitted.
So we can/should expect new approaches from them right? New ideas actually benefitting his benefactors the Kochs who have invested millions in getting him power.
I don’t think so. They did get what they wanted. Not immediate return on their investment but long term destruction of American government so there is no impediment to unrestricted access by business to America’s resources.
To them the world is only dirt from which buried treasure can be harvested. And waste deposited. They are not idealogs but very practical pragmatic men with a short time horizon. Plunder. If it destroys the planet so what? Someone else’s problem.
The great conquerers in history may be noted ultimately for their destruction (or occasionally accidental good) but what drove them was personal power. The satisfaction of control. The ego trip of knowing that their ability to get their way was unestricted and un-questionable.
Power corrupts. They are corrupted. Walker is a tool like one of their giant earth raping machines. What he leaves behind is no matter as long as the earth lies bare and empty and their name is writ large on the ruins.
OMG like Pence and Bush, Walker is dumb but Hollywood pretty so the dumbed-down or exhausted voter may lose sight of the real issues.
And, Pete, Mother Nature, or whatever, simply isn’t prepared to adjust to our current pace of destruction. We are out striping her ability to auto- correct. I’m anything but an apocalyptist but the times, they are a changin’.
Europeans appear unable to grasp the fact that Africa/Asian/American peoples managed their respective continents for hundreds of thousands of years and left little if any trace of their existence. We have managed to create destruction across every continent in less than half a millennium. Natives swam lagoons for untold centuries and discovered beautiful coral reefs. Now they discover rusting ships and tanks.
And us? We don’t even understand the first step in planet survival. In fact, we even have powerful organizations dedicated to destruction in the name of Right to Life. By doing so, they are insuring death. Rocket Scientist all.
“squeezed into the GOP’s presidential campaign clown car.”
For shame. One of the two major parties is conducting a vigorous primary to decide their candidate for President, and you dismiss the entire field as a “clown car.”
This on the heels of your post of a few days ago in which you claim that all persons are due civility.
No, Ma’am. This is trolling of the first order.
Walker is an idiot Gopper. So is the front runner The Donald. Idiots like them are feeding the trolls.
The challenge is not to figure out why Scott Walker has done what he has done to Wisconsin. The challenge is to determine why the people of Wisconsin have allowed him to do what he has done to them.
The consequences of any of those ideologically-driven positions do not end in the common good, but in some dark rabbit hole of misery and/or suffering, that any society which finds itself there would be struggling to find a way out of it. I think Bernie Sanders was right on when he suggested that these people–clowns that they are–should have to debate a rational, knowledgeable person.
These are not Republican ideas. This is reactionary nonsense.
I agree with you Stuart. But I would add that we need to learn why the people of Indiana also vote against their own best interests. Indiana which claims to be good for business has not been good for its people, much less the part of the earth that it inhabits. What is it that makes Indiana and Wisconsin so much alike besides electing “pretty boy fundamentalist Christians” as our governors?
I read an article in today’s Guardian where some in the Republican Party are amazed at Bernie Sanders surge in the polls as an example – As well-connected Republican strategist Liz Mair explained to the Guardian, conservatives are excited that Sanders “is exposing Clinton for what many Republicans have long argued she is: a cold, robotic, inauthentic fraud that no one, regardless of ideology, should be comfortable with”.
If Republicans are mystified by Bernie Sanders they should not be. Bernie Sanders is resonating with voters because of his platform and his long held beliefs in his platform. Bernie is surging in the polls and is accomplishing this without name calling his opponents. He is sticking with the issues.
I struggle to find a defining difference among the Republicans campaigning for President.
Theresa, excellent point. Folks have not yet figured out that everything is connected. You can’t have a state that’s great for business and miserable in all other areas. The right wing agenda to starve public education and treat teachers like slaves is having some real down to earth consequences: nobody wants to teach in Indiana. In the words of Gomer Pyle, “Surprise! Surprise!” Applications for teaching licenses and enrollments in teacher education programs have dropped massively. Schools can’t find teachers. Well, I guess that’s capitalism at work, which means that sword cuts both ways. When the legislature fails to benefit the common good, and you kick the persons responsible for maintaining the common good, bad things happen to everyone. That, by the way, is a message that has also eluded Mr. Walker as well as Mr. Pence.
One of the clues that feeds my sense of the great awakening is that apparently Hillary is not liberal enough for so many. Thus Bernie’s success and Warren’s popularity.
The Great Oligarchy Plot’s dozen + political dwarfs are tripping all over themselves trying to pander to a diminishing conservative crowd of rubes who’ve completely fallen for pied piper Roger Ailes siren song of the country’s ours to destroy and we aren’t giving it up to blacks and women and those who work and immigrants and non Christians and gays and liberals and people so unafraid that they don’t march to the NRA’s threat that there’s a threat ’round every corner.
For pictures of the Republican vision for the world Google “images of tar sands mining”. The power to do this is what the oligarchs pay Ailes and Murdoch and Limbaugh and Beck and Savage and Norquist to recruit Republican voters to support. These pictures are what is behind the right of free speech aka money to super PACs that SCOTUS recently conferred on those trying to profit from earth’s destruction.
But we’re going to teach them what “not for sale” really means.
Theresa, it’s the racism and bigotry, plain and simple. That’s why heavily white Midwestern states elect right wing zombies.
Louie:
Your support for Sanders is admirable. He’s a principled candidate with populist idea, just like Kucinich.
Your problem is that you’re about to find out just what the Democrats are all about. It’s not a party of principle. It’s a group that seeks power, and only power. They say anything necessary to get power.
The Democrats are going to turn on Sanders ferociously and nastily. Hillary won’t adopt a single Sanders’ position, and you’ll be on the sidelines trying to rationalize why the seeming standard-bearer for Humphrey’s party got the Ron Paul treatment.
I fear Gopper might be right on this one.
1. On immigration, Walker says he’s changed his mind on a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants and no longer supports the idea. He’s expressed skepticism toward legal immigration as well.
Point for Walker.
2. On gay marriage, Walker is calling for a constitutional amendment allowing states to ban it.
Point for Walker. What an embarrassment that will be to the Supreme Court, having a constitutional amendment passed to repeal a judicial enactment.
3. On abortion rights, Walker is pushing for a 20-week ban in Wisconsin with no exceptions for rape or incest. (In 2014 he told voters his previous legislation left “the final decision to a woman and her doctor.”)
Point for Walker. There is no such thing as abortion “rights.” Protecting life is the foundational purpose of the state.
4. On “gun rights,” Walker is against any attempt to ban assault weapons or limit the ability of anyone to own a gun.
Point for Walker. Weapons bans are silly.
5. On labor unions, he is the GOP’s most virulent anti-labor candidate, having taken on teachers and other public employees and signing a “right-to-work” law. (He says his battles with labor leaders have prepared him to take on the Islamic State.)
Point for Walker. The teachers’ union is a most odious group and needs to be harassed wherever found. Everyone knows this. It’s an easy “degree,” and they engage in brainwashing and indoctrination, not teaching.
6. He favors tax cuts over deficit reduction and public education. His most recent Wisconsin budget cuts taxes, requires steep cuts to education, and deepens the state deficit.
Walker loses a point for his support of the Bucks arena. Walker gets half a point back, because giving more money to public education is merely featherbedding teachers’ already bloated pensions.
7. He has tried to weaken Wisconsin’s “open records” law by blocking press requests that have yielded some embarrassing finds in the past.
Walker loses two points for that.
Walker shakes out as just a moderate. There’s nothing really out of the mainstream in his ideas.
“The Democrats are going to turn on Sanders ferociously and nastily.”
Of course there is zero evidence of this happening but like so much of what conservatives swallow every day it can’t be absolutely ruled out. That makes it as legitimate as any conspiracy theory. Lochness may still reveal secrets.
But back in the real world the Koch hoards are fully illuminated by monumental evidence.
So in Gopper World something not impossible rates the same as something that can’t be denied. A technique that Ailes is professed master of teaching.
Goober, er Gopper, where did you go to school, if you did and what did you learn if anything and your description of teacher unions is a good description of yourself, in my opinion. a retired teacher union member
In other discussions with other conservatives I have gained much experience with their “newspeak” (as in “1984” not their interpretation that newspeak = news peak).
Among many words that they have redefined (democracy, freedom, rights, Constitution, Capitalism, the First and Second Ammendments, etc) one masterpiece is “sustainable”. We know that something that is sustainable means that it is not temporary. They have redefined it to mean expensive.
So sustainable energy, economics, solutions, systems, etc to them are to be avoided while those who speak our traditional language recognize that sustainable is a desirable property.
“1984”, published in 1949, like “Atlas Shrugged” published 8 years later have been converted from apocalyptic novels to handbooks. How to accumulate power through information.
That’s why we have been headed towards apocalypse and the great awakening is our last exit ramp.
From an analysis of 1984 Newspeak on the web.
” In his Appendix, Orwell explains the syntactical arrangement and the etymology of the Newspeak. A living language, such as English, one that has the capability of diverse expression, has the tendency to gain words and therefore broaden the awareness and knowledge of its speakers. Newspeak, on the other hand, loses words, by removing words that represent opposing concepts. Therefore, for example, because the word “good” presumes the opposite of “bad,” the word “bad” is unnecessary. Similarly, all degrees of “goodness” can be expressed simply by adding standard prefixes and suffixes to this one root word: ungood (bad) and plusgood (very good) and doubleplusgood (wonderful). In so doing, Newspeak not only eliminates “unnecessary” words, but it also promotes a narrowing of thought and, therefore, awareness. The idea behind Newspeak is that, as language must become less expressive, the mind is more easily controlled. Through his creation and explanation of Newspeak, Orwell warns the reader that a government that creates the language and mandates how it is used can control the minds of its citizens.”
Is there any wonder why Walker et al must crush education and replace it with job training? How Ailes et al creates narrow thinkers?
How Newspeak is being implemented in conservative communities like Texas.
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/07/13/421744763/how-textbooks-can-teach-different-versions-of-history?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20150713
Theresa Bowers. I couldn’t disagree with you more! Pence is not a “pretty boy!”
Gooper, concerning your Sanders post, the American power elite has long viewed Socialism as it’s sworn enemy all the way back to Eugene Debs. I have viewed the Democratic Party since it’s take over by the DLC (Democratic Leadership Council) Neo-Liberal types as a tool of Wall Street. Debs got it right – “The Republican and Democratic parties, or, to be more exact, the Republican-Democratic party, represent the capitalist class in the class struggle. They are the political wings of the capitalist system and such differences as arise between them relate to spoils and not to principles.”
Does anyone believe Joe Hog$ett is going to tell the owners of the Colts and Pacers no more Corporate Welfare???
The McMega-Media doing it’s part to torpedo Bernie Sanders. When the Pundits talk about how the Democrats will do against the Republican Candidates for President the default candidate for the Democrats is always Hillary. Bernie is viewed as a disturbance to the force.
Dem’s have been comfortable with Hillary for years. Bernie is a disturbance to the force and not surprisingly gets second billing. I don’t know anyone who predicted the rate of pendulum swing back towards liberal. Good for the country. Good for Bernie. For Hillary maybe too. She doesn’t have to defend her liberalism as much.
I have a wild suspicion that he might be her VP but no real basis for believing that. Not a bad idea though if he shows legs in his popularity.
“Is there any wonder why Walker et al must crush education”
If education occurred more often in Education, Walker might not see it as wasteful.
If you’re “teaching” global warming, gender equality, recycling, environmentalism, you deserve to have your funding cut.
You demonstrate that “global warming, gender equality, recycling, environmentalism” are areas that you are ignorant in so you’d like to impose the same on others. I suppose that’s one way to appear educated. The approach that Walker takes as a matter of fact.
But there’s another way. Get educated.
I think that you are confusing culture, which is what a person takes in by observing behavior in others deemed to be average, with knowledge, which is what exceptional experts have published as their certainty about the nature of things passes critical limits.
Average people love culture as it reduces thinking. Exceptional thinkers love knowledge as it requires learning.
“Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!”
Rudyard Kipling
Strong through education bests average always.
Sheila’s message is concise, clear and to the point. Some of today’s comments respond accordingly, others are incomprehensible and do not deserve the dignity of a response. I will not specify the one comment that confuses me due to the responder. I have lost faith in and some respect for the view of someone who is far too intelligent and knowledgeable to to lower themself to this level of disrespect for those who deserve our full support at this time of crisis in America.
Look no further than the Kock Brothers plan for America, and please research their father and what he tried to do to America, it’s just taken another generation to accomplish.
“If you’re “teaching” global warming, gender equality, recycling, environmentalism, you deserve to have your funding cut.”
I laughed out loud and scared the cat reading that.
That in a nutshell is the difference between neocons and liberals. Bernie is going to Phoenix, just like the Donald, and they had to change venues twice because they needed more room. They are going to the convention center. I wonder how many will show up? hmmmm. Clinton should be very worried indeed.
Anyone see the story that exploded yesterday where Planned Parenthood brags about selling the body parts of aborted babies?
Their funding can’t be cut fast enough. Disgusting that anyone would associate themselves with such a brutal outfit.
They’re what the Right calls the “Left’s Culture of Death.”
Good for Walker for going after Planned Parenthood.
I don’t always read the comments here but today I have. What I notice is the the reactionary depths to which Gopper defensiveness sinks. I don’t mean that as a personal slam but more as observation of the phenomenon of opposition actively re-enforcing belief and cognitive dissonance pressuring or exposing choices perhaps not otherwise made. I suppose the emotional reaction to mishaps in cleaning the environment, recycling or principles of equality in gender relationships is to denounce the topics in their entirety as progressive plots to undermine capitalism or the American way and can be expected but I’d hope for a bit more thoughtfulness.
As to the Culture of Death, — The expose of tissue sales for research- such as it is may or may not display someone in a morally or legally compromised position. That’s possible and has happened in many places under many conditions by many people and is hardly reason to think it true across the board. My assumption is there’s much more to come in the story. Regardless though if full factual evidence supports even a portion of the hysteria in the pro-life press a price will be paid and that is the real reason underlying the bloody flag waving.
If only the same standard were applied to the war machine propagandists who see no problems with sending young men and women with no research interests at all with far more invasive tools to not just assist a desired and informed procedure but to inflict without consent or recognition of consequence death to combatants and non combatants alike in an overhyped threat reduction posture while in the process creating the exactly thing they supposedly oppose.
Here’s what PPP says about the death culture claim.
Statement from Planned Parenthood on New Undercover Video
Statement from Eric Ferrero, Vice President of Communications, Planned Parenthood Federation of America:
“In health care, patients sometimes want to donate tissue to scientific research that can help lead to medical breakthroughs, such as treatments and cures for serious diseases. Women at Planned Parenthood who have abortions are no different. At several of our health centers, we help patients who want to donate tissue for scientific research, and we do this just like every other high-quality health care provider does — with full, appropriate consent from patients and under the highest ethical and legal standards. There is no financial benefit for tissue donation for either the patient or for Planned Parenthood. In some instances, actual costs, such as the cost to transport tissue to leading research centers, are reimbursed, which is standard across the medical field.
“A well funded group established for the purpose of damaging Planned Parenthood’s mission and services has promoted a heavily edited, secretly recorded videotape that falsely portrays Planned Parenthood’s participation in tissue donation programs that support lifesaving scientific research. Similar false accusations have been put forth by opponents of abortion services for decades. These groups have been widely discredited and their claims fall apart on closer examination, just as they do in this case.”
###
Planned Parenthood is the nation’s leading provider and advocate of high-quality, affordable health care for women, men, and young people, as well as the nation’s largest provider of sex education. With approximately 700 health centers across the country, Planned Parenthood organizations serve all patients with care and compassion, with respect and without judgment. Through health centers, programs in schools and communities, and online resources, Planned Parenthood is a trusted source of reliable health information that allows people to make informed health decisions. We do all this because we care passionately about helping people lead healthier lives.
– See more at: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/statement-from-planned-parenthood-on-new-undercover-video#sthash.9bnKS9Z4.dpuf
Statement from Planned Parenthood on New Undercover Video
Statement from Eric Ferrero, Vice President of Communications, Planned Parenthood Federation of America:
“In health care, patients sometimes want to donate tissue to scientific research that can help lead to medical breakthroughs, such as treatments and cures for serious diseases. Women at Planned Parenthood who have abortions are no different. At several of our health centers, we help patients who want to donate tissue for scientific research, and we do this just like every other high-quality health care provider does — with full, appropriate consent from patients and under the highest ethical and legal standards. There is no financial benefit for tissue donation for either the patient or for Planned Parenthood. In some instances, actual costs, such as the cost to transport tissue to leading research centers, are reimbursed, which is standard across the medical field.
“A well funded group established for the purpose of damaging Planned Parenthood’s mission and services has promoted a heavily edited, secretly recorded videotape that falsely portrays Planned Parenthood’s participation in tissue donation programs that support lifesaving scientific research. Similar false accusations have been put forth by opponents of abortion services for decades. These groups have been widely discredited and their claims fall apart on closer examination, just as they do in this case.”
###
Planned Parenthood is the nation’s leading provider and advocate of high-quality, affordable health care for women, men, and young people, as well as the nation’s largest provider of sex education. With approximately 700 health centers across the country, Planned Parenthood organizations serve all patients with care and compassion, with respect and without judgment. Through health centers, programs in schools and communities, and online resources, Planned Parenthood is a trusted source of reliable health information that allows people to make informed health decisions. We do all this because we care passionately about helping people lead healthier lives.
– See more at: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/statement-from-planned-parenthood-on-new-undercover-video#sthash.9bnKS9Z4.dpuf