Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Walker's '18 run: creepy, conflicted, inane

Six weeks until election day, and a lifeless Walker '18 campaign is marked by creepy, R-rated ads, strangulating contradictions, 'Go Pack Go' and a frozen custard fetish.

Childish Twitter photos aside, the Governor of the Dairy State really can't run as the dairy industry's friend, as farms are closing at the rate of two a day --
Another 47 dairy farms close in WI; 101 since July
-- and some in the industry he has de-regulated are delivering brown water to their neighbors' spigots.

Can't run on fiscal responsibility: He's throwing last-ditch money at roads he hasn't fixed, schools he's underfunded and health care he's trying to destroy. On that score, the contradiction is brutally obvious: the pre-existing condition coverages he's pretending to guarantee are only at risk because he's backing litigation to eliminate them.

In fact, Walker has cost the state many billions of dollars separate from the billions of dollars he's sent to and triggered for Foxconn.

Can't run on property rights: Speaking of Foxconn, Walker's local allies in Mount Pleasant have embraced government-mandated seizure of land and homes preposterously declared blighted so that Foxconn, a foreign corporation, can put enough shovels in the ground to meet Walker's election timetables. 

One local resident at a hearing in Mount Pleasant last night said the Village was snatching people's hearts out. Now there's a platform to run on.

This perversion of local authority is about the only exercise of local control which Walker has backed in the last eight years - - so feel free to toss that one-time GOP 'principle' into history's ash can, too.

Can't run on letting the marketplace guide the economy: He and the legislature Republicans run have committed about $4 billion of money from the people Walker likes to call the 'hard-working taxpayers statewide to the Foxconn project - - full archive, here; GOP state senators are so worried about correctly being seen as the Reckless Spending Party that they are refusing to come into special session so Walker can throw another $117 million in taxpayer subsidies to the quite-well-off-multi-national behemoth Kimberly Clark.

Can't run as the Adults in the Room: Poor planning, obeisance to special interests, and climate change denial have left the state and everyday homeowners vulnerable to everything from congested and crummy roads to costly, repetitive flooding - - don't bet on full federal flood reimbursements, given Hurricane Florence billing - - to contaminated drinking water.

Look to the DNR and the regional US EPA office run by former DNR Secretary Cathy Stepp to back away from strong drinking water guarantees in Wood and Juneau Counties.

And a lack of transportation planning and rational funding will extend, transit-free road congestion from the Marquette Interchange through the Zoo Interchange through 20-whatever.

Can't cozy up to Trump, the GOP's leader: The closer Walker and Vukmir get to Trump, the faster that independent and female voters run the other way. 

Ditto for businesses that grow, import, make and export things, from grain to ginseng, milk to motorcycles. Tariff King Trump's moves will add the equivalent of new taxes on companies and consumers alike, and kiss your little sales tax holiday checkout line pocket change and fractional play Everypaycheck boosts good-bye, Bucky.

So look for Walker through November 6th to co-opt the pro sports' calenders - - Badger Saturdays, NFL Sundays, the Brewers' post-season chase and NBA pre-season, - - lay out the right caps and jerseys, and fuel up the state planes!

Along with these inanities:

Adrian’s Frozen Custard in Burlington. Mmmmmm!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well done. I don't know what type of reach this blog has, nor whether persuadable and/or undecided voters follow - but these posts are effective in that they keep things in context instead of MJS and WSJ's haphazard and disconnected coverage. They want you to believe that any one point you raise here random occurrances and may even be and "ooops".

Then we have a slew of right wing media across the state that won't acknowledge any of the objective facts in your post.

I only hope that the gravity of this reckless situation created by Scott Walker, enabled by the largest media organizations in Wisconsin and almost all local print and broadcast, is enough to move a large majority of voters to take action and vote in 2018.

If it is at all close, Walker will prevail. How do I know this?

I have spent the morning at today's Wisconsin Electons Commission meeting. There are no meaningful election safeguards in place, voters have been unjustifiable purged by ERIC, voting systems around the state are not up to the task - especially if we see large turnout,and Kathleen Nicholas, responsible for Walkersha flipping elections, was just given a platform here today to spread racist propaganda about Milwaukee voters.

James Rowen said...

Thank you for the comment. I make these posts available to anyone or any site choosing to repost or quote from them. They are up on Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to distribute as you wish.

Anonymous said...

Important update from WEC meeting: they acknowledge that stripping voters registration through ERIC was a flawed process. Megan Wolfe has recommended that all local clerks have the ability to reactivate voter registration. Only Milwaukee was seriously impacted and 40% of voters stripped of voting rights by ERIC are from there.

Milwaukee has just formally requested that ALL voters get reactivated by WEC/ERIC. It would never be feasible for Milwaukee to reinstate all voters one-at-a-time at th2 polls.

This is good news and likely will be approved today, but the larger point is that thw fix was in via ERIC, all party's acknowledge massive purges were improperly done and our voting systems across the state are still unreliable, unjustifiable, and non-transparent.

Peter Felknor said...

Well, he can still run on being King of the Know-Nothings, which seems to be a very popular platform hereabouts.