Governor Scott Walker
(R-Wisconsin)
By Elaine Magliaro
The “goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin”—aka Scott Walker—made quite a splash last Thursday during his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Matt Taibbi (Rolling Stone) said that Walker was surging in popularity thanks to his performance at CPAC, “where the union-busting governor inspired raucous applause with his ‘I was a dick in Wisconsin, and I can be one in Washington, too!’ stump speech.”
Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman (New York Times) reported that the governor of Wisconsin “spoke before a standing-room-only crowd, was repeatedly bathed in loud ovations, received only a handful of softball questions after his remarks, and avoided any direct criticism of his potential Republican rivals.”
Taibbi described Walker’s address as “a broadside against a litany of conservative bugbears, from Planned Parenthood to the media to tax day to the subversive act of voting without a photo ID, etc.” He noted that Walker’s “money line” came during a Q&A session when the “goggle-eyed homunculus” was asked how he would take on radical Islamist terrorists. That’s when the tough-talking governor compared fighting ISIS to standing up to pro-union protesters who demonstrated at the state Capital in Wisconsin in 2011. Walker spouted with pride, “If I can take on 100,000 protesters, I can do the same across the world.”
Right, Scotty, “taking on” protesting teachers, nurses, and other public employees is akin to fighting the bloodthirsty members of ISIS who go around beheading people. OY!
Arturo Garcia (Raw Story):
Walker said that “people in the media don’t understand” that his position enabled him to get threat assessments from the FBI, and that he had been concerned about the group for years.
“You’ve already seen some of the reported stories about what we see in the Twin Cities, some of the issues there,” he said, alluding to reports last year that authorities were investigating whether ISIS was recruiting in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.
Walker continued: “I want a commander-in-chief who will do everything in their power to ensure that the threat from radical Islamic terrorists does not wash up on American soil. We will have someone who leads and ultimately will send a message not only that we will protect American soil, but do not take this upon freedom-loving people anywhere else in the world. We need a leader with that kind of confidence.”
Taibbi:
Walker’s seeming comparison of peaceful union activists to head-chopping Islamic terrorists drew a predictable response, with progressive groups like American Bridge sending out alerts denouncing his comments, along with outrage from the Democratic National Committee.
But the National Review also called it an “unforced error,” with writer Jim Geraghty taking special offense at the fact that Walker had forced him into a place where he had to defend, of all people, union activists. Even Rick Perry, not exactly a kumbaya-chanting paragon of tolerance, chided Walker for crossing a line:
These are Americans… You are talking about, in the case of ISIS, people who are beheading individuals and committing heinous crimes, who are the face of evil. To try to make the relationship between them and the unions is inappropriate.
Martin and Haberman reported that following his speech, Walker participated in a brief interview with a small group of reporters. That’s when the governor attempted to clarify his remarks about comparing protesters with radical Islamist terrorists: “There’s no comparison between the two, let me be perfectly clear. I’m just pointing out the closest thing I have to handling a difficult situation was the 100,000 protesters I had to deal with.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) took to Twitter on Saturday and “ripped” Walker for his remark about protesters and ISIS when she tweeted the following: “If Scott Walker sees 100,000 teachers & firefighters as his enemies, maybe it’s time we take a closer look at his friends.”
SOURCES
Scott Walker, God’s Gift to the Democratic Party: Walker’s ISIS comments might help him in the short term, but in the end his Party will suffer (Rolling Stone)
Elizabeth Warren and others smack down Scott Walker for equating labor unions to ISIS (Raw Story)
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker: Taking on ISIS is totally like busting up unions (Raw Story)
Watching Scotty Blow, Cont’d: Why Singing Grandmas Are Like ISIS (Esquire)
Warren dings Walker over comments on unions and ISIS (The Hill)
Rivals Christie and Walker Find Fortunes Reversed as CPAC Opens (New York Times)
Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
FFS Guest Blogger
Joy of Fishes
Chuck Stanley
shortfinals
Terry Welshans
ann li-summers
wordcloud9
Flowers For Socrates 
Walker, the son of a baptist minister, leads among evangelicals and nob- evangelicals.Think he is a serious contender. Jeb is viewed as too librul. Rand Paul who carries a lot of baggage courts the evangelical vote also but constantly flip flops. Christie probably could not get re-elected in New Jersey these days so Walker is currently the leader. He has no knowledge of foreign policy so the debates may ultimately do him in but for now he has the momentum.
non evangelicals
Walker, is probably in the vanguard of rich pantheon of conservative “whoredom”.
You know how the Scott Walker joke goes:
There is someone who is willing to commit any degradation and debauchery, sexual, scatological or otherwise for money and then there is the common prostitute.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/01/charles_and_david_koch_are_putting_900_million_into_2016_campaign_the_conservative.html ”
“But the huge presence of David and Charles Koch changes that calculation. They give Walker better ground to stand on. He can run an insurgent campaign, and unlike Mike Huckabee in the 2008 race, he won’t run out of cash. Suddenly, there’s a real alternative to the original consensus candidate, and the two are forced into serious competition, which can reveal hidden strength or highlight unnoticed weakness. And if Walker loses the nomination, then at least the Kochs have made themselves an even stronger force in Republican politics—a fourth leg to the GOP coalition
For liberal observers, there’s a certain irony to these moves and machinations. In Democratic politics, the Koch brothers are real-life bogeymen, avatars of rapacious greed and a dangerous threat to our public institutions. But in Republican politics, the Koch brothers may become a new tool for accountability: a way for less powerful parts of the party to ignore the usual gatekeepers and exert their will.”
Didn’t Rand just beat out Walker at CPAC? I seem to remember reading that but I’m not interested enough in those crazies to go look it up.
Yes, but Walker came in second and Walker won the Iowa poll. He has the Koch money which will help him compete with Bush. Right now it looks like Bush, Walker and Paul will be the major contenders.
http://crooksandliars.com/2015/02/russ-feingold-running-again-sure-sounds-it Easier to win in 2016 a presidential year.
SwM,
Yes, I vaguely recall that Walker was a close second to Rand. The Republicans like to give the appearances of having a race but in the end, Bush will win out. If he doesn’t then we’ll know the Party has truly splintered beyond repair.
I’d like to see someone other than a good ol’ boy take the nomination but I honestly don’t see that happening. It would be nice to be wrong. On the other hand, Paul and or Walker would be a lot easier to beat in the general than Bush …
blouise, Probably in the end, Bush will prevail but I think Walker, Bush and Paul will emerge as the top three. Walker will have the Koch money to keep him going and Paul will have plenty of young men that actually believe he is a libertarian plus some fundamentalist christians that like his authorship of the “personhood” bill.
It’s going to be very entertaining to read the posts from any of those men’s supporters.
More accurate is Scott Walker is compared to Val Putin.
Scott Walker Denies Comparing Protesters To ISIS, Says Obama Loves America
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/01/scott-walker-denies-compa_n_6778560.html
Excerpt:
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on Sunday made an effort to walk back recent controversial comments comparing union protesters to the Islamic State group and expressing doubt over whether President Barack Obama loves America.
Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” Walker said he was “not comparing” union protesters to the terrorist group known as ISIS.
The comment came three days after Walker answered a question about ISIS at a conservative conference by saying, “If I can take on 100,000 protesters, I can do the same across the world.” Walker was referring to the protesters who gathered in Wisconsin in 2011 to oppose his efforts to strip public sector unions of collective bargaining rights.
His remarks at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference drew an immediate backlash, and since then, both Walker and his spokespeople have been working overtime to dial back and “clarify” what he meant.
“What I meant was it’s about leadership, and the leadership we provided under extremely difficult circumstances,” Walker, a likely 2016 Republican presidential candidate, told “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace. “To me, I apply that to saying, ‘If I were to run and if I were to win and be commander-in-chief, I believe that kind of leadership is what’s necessary to take on radical Islamic terrorism.'”
Bet those union members are glad Walker didn’t have access to armed drones back in 2010. Maybe the Koch boys will buy him a couple so he may truly clarify his position..
He could pose with his little game controller as he conducts his War On Wississippi Union Terrorists.
Blouise,
Remember this?
Koch Whore: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker
To my mind it is not important if Walker came in first , second or last. Ideas like this propounded as if they are meaningful, sophisticated, and important are accepted into the public square all the time, when they rather deserve to be shunned.
But that we , as a nation, accept them as worthy we are shackled in our politics by the Lilliputians of our time.
But more, or worse… ideas like this are not just stupid, but they create ever more strong, the divide of the citizen from reason. It is the same underlying principle , or structure of the argument, that denies science, needs to rework history, xenophobic support of inhuman policies, enables wars that deny the needs of the citizenry, and etc… .
It is not simply another rational point of view to be considered for its underlying elements of good sense..to be worked out in a compromise between reasonably competing ideas, .but a certain demagoguery that serves to silence conversation and impose a sort of Us v. Them power dynamic upon the conversation.
It all sort of reminds me of the Russian optimist and pessimist talking while walking through Red Square … the pessimist says ‘ things are so bad … it simply cannot get any worse’ , to which the optimist brightly responds “Oh Yes it can!!!”.
http://www.ibtimes.com/election-2016-hillary-clinton-reported-ready-announce-candidacy-next-month-1832226
Scott Walker calls Reagan’s bust of air traffic controller strike ‘most significant foreign policy decision’
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/02/28/scott-walker-calls-reagans-bust-of-air-traffic-controller-strike-most-significant-foreign-policy-decision/
Excerpt:
“I think foreign policy is something that’s not just about having a PhD or talking to PhD’s,” he said. “It’s about leadership.”
Walker contended that “the most significant foreign policy decision of my lifetime” was then-President Ronald Reagan’s move to bust a 1981 strike of air traffic controllers, firing some 11,000 of them.
“It sent a message not only across America, it sent a message around the world,” Walker said. America’s allies and foes alike became convinced that Reagan was serious enough to take action and that “we weren’t to be messed with,” he said.
Walker’s comments came two days after he took heat for saying at the Conservative Political Action Conference that his experience battling labor protesters in Wisconsin has prepared him to take on Islamic State terrorists.
“Walker contended that “the most significant foreign policy decision of my lifetime” was then-President Ronald Reagan’s move to bust a 1981 strike of air traffic controllers, firing some 11,000 of them.
“It sent a message not only across America, it sent a message around the world,”
One has to wonder about the perception of this man for him to make such a statement. That he found fall of the USSR, the Panama invasion, support for the Contras, 9/11 and the wars that followed to be less significant from a foreign policy perspective than destroying PATCO is absurd. What world does this man live in?
Scott Walker Is Making Shit Up, Just Like His Hero Ronald Reagan
—By Kevin Drum| Sat Feb. 28, 2015
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/02/scott-walker-just-ronald-reagan-they-both-made-shit
Hmmm… who owns the Journal? Gotta find a way to walkback Walker’s public-service-employee-union-members are terrorists stance. I wonder how much money foreign interests have contributed to the Bush family over the years. Try as hard as they will, Hillary still comes out ahead in the foreign policy/affairs experience category. Gotta do better than that if they want to convince the independents that Bush should get their votes.
Mike S.,
“What world does this man live in?”
A political land bought and paid for by the Koch brothers.
Wingnutistan
http://atr.rollcall.com/russ-feingold-state-department-wisconsin-senate/ Russ Feingold may run again in 2016. They do have Tammy Baldwin and it is much easier for a democrat to get elected in a presidential year.
SwM,
That would be a fun campaign to watch. (Feingold) Many Wisconsians are fed up with the politicians who have made their state the Mississippi of the Midwest. We’ll see just how many if Feingold runs.
Watching Scotty Blow: A Bad Weekend
From his plan to stand up to ISIS to his renovated immigration stance to courting campaign donors, Scott Walker’s foray into the national spotlight has been less than impressive.
By Charles Pierce
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a33410/watching-scotty-blow-a-bad-weekend/
Excerpt:
It turns out that you need more to run for president than RAISING YOUR VOICE to a bunch of Bible-banging hayshakers in Iowa. His first sojourn into the national spotlight has not treated Scott Walker well. First, he told the CPAC coven that he can stand up to ISIS because he stood up to biology teachers and street sweepers. Even Rick Perry thought this was stupid. Walker responded by denying he’d done what everybody had heard him do.
“What I meant was it’s about leadership, and the leadership we provided under extremely difficult circumstances,” Walker, a likely 2016 Republican presidential candidate, told “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace. “To me, I apply that to saying, ‘If I were to run and if I were to win and be commander-in-chief, I believe that kind of leadership is what’s necessary to take on radical Islamic terrorism.'”
Right. Swimming in corporate money and with a pet legislature, and a private police force to back him up, Walker managed to lead from under his desk. I don’t think ISIS will throw down its American-made arms because of some TV commercials for which the Koch Brothers paid. Also, his position on immigration has undergone extensive renovation…His newly remodeled position is festooned with shiny banalities.
“I look at the problems we’ve experienced for the last few years. I’ve talked to governors on the border and others out there. I’ve talked to people all across America…And the concerns I have is that we need to secure the border. We ultimately need to put in place a system that works — a legal immigration system that works…And part of doing this is put the onus on employers, getting them E-Verify and tools to do that. But I don’t think you do it through amnesty.”