Walker, WI GOP defame Wisconsin's environment, conservation legacy

[Updated, expanded, from 11/26/17] No doubt 2018 campaign ads will show Walker and his GOP legislative allies decked out in hunting and angling gear.

So when you read Lee Bergquist's stellar summation of the environmental giveaways bestowed on corporations by Scott Walker and his business-compliant legislature, or this compilation of expert and insider commentary on our GOP-degraded environment, or follow the unprecedented and costly environmental and financial favors awarded the Foxconn project by Walker and his GOP lieutenants, try and also remember these foundational truths, too:

*  Just as he did with his closely-held Act 10 cards, Walker hid his damaging environmental intentions when he ran for Governor in 2010 - - but in a classic example of political deflection and false projection accused Democratic opponent, Tom Barrett, of harboring a secret environmental agenda:

Walker ran & won in '10 on a political and environmental lie

So let me, for the record, re-post what I wrote on 12:01 a.m. January 3rd, 2011, - - the first minute of the day Walker was sworn in publicly, but had already appropriately taken the oath of office privately:

Meet Wisconsin's Radical Environmentalists

During the 2010 gubernatorial campaign, Scott Walker ran an ad that claimed opponent Tom Barrett had a "radical environmental agenda."

What a whopper and deliberate political diversion that was - - but two weeks later, right on schedule and closer to the election, there was the "radical environmental" bogeyman in scary tones from the National Rifle Association, lauding Walker for his opposition to "radical environmental regulations enacted by the DNR."

...And here's the kicker:

It was Walker all along who had the radical environmental blueprint, the 'Cut It, Gut It, Pave it, Fill It' plan to help the home builders and road builders help themselves to the state's wetlands, forests, and from inside the DNR.

*   So since Day One, Walker, his legislative allies, a friendly Attorney General and donor/special interest organizations have been busy taking control of and privatizing public resources for private gain, laid here here. recently.

How Walker is privatizing and selling off Wisconsin

Some support for the argument:

* Remember that among Walker's first actions as Governor in January, 2011 was to administratively suspend state review of a wetland-filling permit application filed by one of his donors to speed along a development near Lambeau Field.

* This post among others explains how a donor's privately-owned golf course has gotten the attention and action from the Department of Natural Resources, the Department of Administration and the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board.

* This post among others explains how special interests sent specific, hand-delivered demands for control over the public's waters to GOP legislators who, through coordination between GOP Attorney General Brad Schimel, and the GOP-run Assembly and Senate, got legislation adopted which implemented those private interests' demands.

* This post among others explains the relentless pursuit by special interests for control of the people's water; a group of Walker donors did win permanent high-volume groundwater pumping permits from the DNR which are blocked, for now, by a Dane County Circuit Court judge.

* This post among others explains how major Walker donors, water users and large animal feeding operators will get even more favored treatment through Walker's move last week - - without hearings or legislative action - - to transfer from the DNR those large animal feeding operators' permit reviews and already weak inspection and enforcement actions to the another state agency - - Ag, Trade and Consumer Protection - - which by law promotes and helps market milk, cheese and meat products. 

*   The same corporate special interests to which Walker and the GOP-run legislature are handing Wisconsin water, wetlands, air quality - - and, if they fully prevail, a physical promotional presence at state parks and even hotly-contested private domain over acreage within a popular destination like Kohler Andrae State Park - -  have nailed down control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court through campaign funding and written no-foul conflict-of-interest 'rules' which allow Justices and state judges to rule on cases involving donors to their campaign committees:

Realtors, WMC, wrote WI Supreme Court's no-foul ethics rule

So, of course, the WMC would lead the charge in the Legislature to exempt Foxconn from environmental reviews, rules and regulations - - 

WMC fills wetlands filling 'debates' with polluting nonsense 

  - - while the Foxconn bill the WMC pushed to adoption also speeds any litigation at unique speed in Wisconsin straight to the State Supreme Court where a friendly majority awaits.

*  This generation of Wisconsin Republican politicians has no interest in conservation, or environmental protection, or the state Constitution's Public Trust Doctrine which they are repeatedly obliterating. 

Their interest is pure partisan self-preservation funded by the very special interests to whom they are giving away our public land, fresh water and clean air.

Except to pose for pictures in which their feigned appreciation of the environment and waters which by law belong to all the people of the state defames the legacy left to the people by the legends of Wisconsin environmentalism and the public interest, like John Muir, Aldo Leopold and Gaylord Nelson.