Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Walker, Trump sinking upside-down, principle-free GOP

Trump's $12 billion bailout for farmers hurt by the trade war he started because it would be easy to win is the final nail in the GOP coffin.

So from now on:

*  No more stories about Republicans being the party of fiscal caution, let alone expertise. Also see, Paul Ryan, trillion-dollar deficit, etc.

Updated, here. And file under 'get ready for reductions to Medicare, Medicaid, your life span, etc.' All as cold-blooded as is Walker's promotion and signing of bills that slammed middle-class workers' take home pay, including Act 10, right-to-work and overturning the 'prevailing wage' rate for public project construction. 

Along with his hard-and-fast adherence to $7.25 as a 'livable,' minimum, poverty-enforcing wage.

*  Ditto about Wisconsin Republicans who are throwing $4.5 billion in taxpayer money to a foreign company at the cost of additional depletion of already-strained state transportation dollars. Not to mention also the damage done to wetlands, fresh water and clean air for Foxconn.

And throw in protections for another 100,000 wetland acres statewide which Walker and the legislature wiped out for developers a few months ago.

More about all that that, later.

* And let's make sure the GOP is challenged if it hauls out sanctimonious tripe about being the party of law and order, what with a president who seized and jailed thousands of children and innocent adults at the US southern border.

And who makes secret payments to cover up his infidelities, uses a family foundation as a personal piggy-bank, cozies up to dictators worldwide like Putin and Duarte whose undemocratic, thuggish powers he longs to exercise.

A president stuffed his Cabinet with corporate puppets at HSS, HUD, EPA and Interior who broke or ignored ethics rules and standards of conduct and fiscal oversight they were duty-bound to follow and enforce throughout their agencies.

* And whose US Attorney General provided misleading answers during his confirmation hearing and just smirked his way through a "lock her up" chant with high schoolers he should have lectured about American democracy, the rule of law and the US constitution.

* And whose Wisconsin Attorney General counterpart had no problem quickly minting self-serving commemorative coin handouts with taxpayer funding that touted his dedication to work, yet is dragging his feet testing rape kit evidence and is campaigning as an opioid abuse crusader while the state leads the nation in new opioid emergency room admissions.

And from all Wisconsin Republicans, let's have a moratorium on campaign ads and self-serving photos like this one from Walker's Twitter feed showing him 'fishing' with his pole held upside down
Image result for scott walker photo fishing
while pretending they have any true respect for Wisconsin's environmental beauty they, like the rest of us, have inherited and should be resisting, not shrugging off as mercury and phosphorous and manure poison our waterways, or selling off land and legacy water rights to well-placed donors or out-of-state companies.

Wisconsin Republicans and the Trump team which is copying our Walker-era environmental contamination and sell off are neither stewards of the public treasury, guardians the law or protectors of our clean air, water and lands. 

They always have the public sphere and interest in their sights, aiming to deploy across all three branches of the government, and every level they influence the 'chamber of commerce mentality' which Walker pledged to establish at what had been a science-and-conservation-directed Department of Natural Resources.

And which, whenever he can, coordinated it with other agencies as disparate as the Department of Administration and the purportedly-somewhat-independent Wisconsin Natural Resources Board to serve his client-donors.

* These Republicans don't even believe anymore in what had been bedrock GOP  guideposts like local control or private property rights.

* And hearing Walker claim to be the education governor is as intentionally-disorienting and nauseating as the phrase 'Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education.' 

Or 'Cathy Stepp, director of the EPA's Great Lakes regional office.'

Or 'the transportation party.'

Or 'the family values party' (also see Trump, children jailing, above.)

These Walker-Trump Republicans are 'conservatives' without a shred of interest in conservation, and are fiscal managers of public money they control with more in common with Bernie Madoff while making off with your money - - instead of minding it for the public good.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Republicans have never been what the media has consistently lied about for my lifetime. This lie is easily dismissed by looking at objective facts:

U.S. Deficit by President
https://www.thebalance.com/deficit-by-president-what-budget-deficits-hide-3306151

Don't Blame Obama For Doubling The Federal Deficit
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2018/01/15/obamas-federal-debt-grew-at-a-slower-rate-than-reagan-h-w-bush-or-w-bush/#35a452091917

Robert Reich: Deficits only count when Democrats are president
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-op-0927-reich-20170926-story.html

U.S. Debt by President by Dollar and Percent: Why Dollar-Wise, Barack Obama Wins
https://www.thebalance.com/us-debt-by-president-by-dollar-and-percent-3306296

The other republican failures you post are true and important observation. To me, the most offensive piece of propaganda Americans have been brainwashed with is that republicans are "fiscal conservatives". Nothing could be farther from the truth, yet it is a meme that the media has catapulted for my entire life.

Donald Trump is a result of many years of political disinformation that entirely misrepresents the achievements and track-records of our major political parties.

Minnesconsin Tom said...

I’m no fisherman, but I have to ask the governor three more questions about that infamous “upside down pole” photo:

1.) Why are you wearing camouflage to catch fish?

2.) Why are you sitting in a boat that looks like it’s five feet from shore? Couldn’t you have just stood on dry land?

3.) Why do you look completely bored out of your mind when I’m sure you only sat there long enough for the picture to be snapped?

Anonymous said...

MN Tom:

1. Walker is scared of the fish. After all, they will eventually figure out that the baited hook is a trick to catch them. He figures the camouflage will protect him when the fish chase him out of the boat and across the nearby field.

2. The boat is less than 5 feet from shore. It is just far enough into the lake so that it floats instead of being beached. Its a political stunt photo. Walker was afraid he would not look as manly if he was standing on the shore.

3. They don't call him "dead-eyes" for nothing. Walker's natural state is an empty mind devoid of any original thoughts or emotions. There's something wrong with the boy, but carefully look at the picture that Rowen uses for posts about him and you will see this. The forced smile on that mis-shaped face gives it away -- and remember -- that's the best he can do when being coached by a professional photographer.

Walker may be too chicken to actually go fishing for pan fish at the shores of a tiny lake, but remember, he took on protesting teachers so he is prepared to go after Islamic extremists. Small pan fish? Not so much.

The rod & real are held upside down, because that is the perspective Walker has on everything else.

Minnesconsin Tom said...

Thank you, Anonymous 3:51, for your insights on what (if anything) was going through Walker’s mind. Yes, I figured from the start that it was nothing more than a phony political stunt photo, like all the junk food he supposedly eats and the beer he supposedly drinks.

Pretty much everything about Scott Walker is phony. In fact, I almost included a fourth question—“What brand of shoe polish do you use to dye your hair?”—but figured it was off topic. I suppose we should give him credit for resisting the temptation to spray-paint his bald spot!