The end to the lying and the secrecy is almost here
So Walker has signed the Power Grab bill, a/k/a the Trash the Wisconsin Idea Bill, a/k/a The Stick-it-to-the People bill, a/k/a The Vos-Fitzgerald-Walker-WMC-Flip Off the People Bill.
Or simply, "Revenge of the little men."
Signed without any of those possible, partial vetoes he'd teased us with, that last load of b.s. having fully spoiled.
Oooooh...might Walker, having said yesterday he'd do "the right thing," not go all the way with Vos and Fitzgerald and the rest of the Legislature's little dictators hell-bent on consolidating partisan power?
Uh, no.
Who's surprised?
But there is a richer silver lining beyond just the end to his last bit of synthetic drama to his affixing his signature as we knew he would:
And that silver lining is that Republicans have taken another giant step towards their eventual irrelevancy, while more immediately, Walker's predictably shallow move is, for at least eight years an end to Gubernatorial leadership in Wisconsin based on fakery, secrecy and lying.
Ask yourself:
* Was the state really broke, requiring an Act 10? No.
* Was Walker being honest when he said at the end of his first term that he fully intended to serve out a second? No - - because he was also actively planning his presidential bid - - staffing decisions, campaign committee organizing, self-aggrandizing speaking and traveling were well underway.
And there was a campaign bio-in-process which turned to be as uninteresting and unremarkable as was the candidate and his campaign, save for the speed of its demise and million-dollar cost.
* Did Walker really mean it when he said he had no interest seeing a 'right-work-bill' on his desk? Of course not, as it was an intrinsic part of his 'divide-and-conquer' playbook - - which is why he signed 'right-to-work' super-fast once his preposterous campaign for the presidency fell flat.
* Was voter ID really needed to prevent voting fraud? Of course not. It was never about 'making it easier to vote and harder to cheat,' but was always about using government - - which Republicans pretend to hate - - to make it harder for many Democrats to vote and while making it make it easier for partisan gerrymanders to continue fixing the game and keep on winning.
* Did you think Walker would be swayed towards changes to the Power Grab bill by the articulate pleas of the many hundreds voters who sat through the Legislature's set-piece hearings into the Power Grab? No, because the outcome was dictated in advance, in secret, by the elitist neo-Soviet-style legislative commissars whose allegiances are, as is Walker's, first to Walker and then to big business, not to the people and the true business of democratic self-government.
* Were you surprised that Walker ultimately turned a deaf ear about the Power Grab measures to Evers, or to Doyle and McCallum - - those two former Governors from different parties - - and all who made similar, reasonable appeals for depth to a shallow man and for equity to an unreasonable incumbent?
* Did any of you really think that Walker might be swayed by Sheldon Lubar, the GOP's Milwaukee-based businessman and unimpeachable elder statesman?
'No,' because you knew that Walker would be Walker.
And 'No" to Evers, McCallum and Doyle, because while they share a title with Walker, he lacks the requisite humility to acknowledge any common bond with them, let alone to principles and a sense of history outside of his self-proclaimed 'legacy' that would validate his commonality them, or with anything other than his reflection in the mirror.
And especially 'no' to Lubar. Because Walker, completely self-absorbed, had already gotten what he wanted from Lubar: grifted, second-hand credibility. And money.
So, mercifully, this round of dealing with Walker is closing, and while court actions await, we know that in just a few weeks Wisconsin will have state constitutional officers who will honor election outcomes, and who will swear their oaths of office without crossing their fingers behind their backs and giving you their middle one when your back is turned.
No more chief executing with flaming pants, a chamber of commerce-inspired seizure of public resources, and to the dispensing of official favors to any and every partisan GOP bellhop and special interest with a checkbook in one hand and a back-scratcher in the other.
What's finally tied up with Walker's signature, noxious as it is, is the beginning of the end of the lying. All of it.
And let the next two years be a mass, daily devotion not to an insultingly false rebalancing of the branches of government, but to recalibrating the state's moral compass to True North.
On, Wisconsin.
Or simply, "Revenge of the little men."
Signed without any of those possible, partial vetoes he'd teased us with, that last load of b.s. having fully spoiled.
Oooooh...might Walker, having said yesterday he'd do "the right thing," not go all the way with Vos and Fitzgerald and the rest of the Legislature's little dictators hell-bent on consolidating partisan power?
Uh, no.
Who's surprised?
But there is a richer silver lining beyond just the end to his last bit of synthetic drama to his affixing his signature as we knew he would:
And that silver lining is that Republicans have taken another giant step towards their eventual irrelevancy, while more immediately, Walker's predictably shallow move is, for at least eight years an end to Gubernatorial leadership in Wisconsin based on fakery, secrecy and lying.
Ask yourself:
* Was the state really broke, requiring an Act 10? No.
* Was Walker being honest when he said at the end of his first term that he fully intended to serve out a second? No - - because he was also actively planning his presidential bid - - staffing decisions, campaign committee organizing, self-aggrandizing speaking and traveling were well underway.
And there was a campaign bio-in-process which turned to be as uninteresting and unremarkable as was the candidate and his campaign, save for the speed of its demise and million-dollar cost.
* Did Walker really mean it when he said he had no interest seeing a 'right-work-bill' on his desk? Of course not, as it was an intrinsic part of his 'divide-and-conquer' playbook - - which is why he signed 'right-to-work' super-fast once his preposterous campaign for the presidency fell flat.
* Was voter ID really needed to prevent voting fraud? Of course not. It was never about 'making it easier to vote and harder to cheat,' but was always about using government - - which Republicans pretend to hate - - to make it harder for many Democrats to vote and while making it make it easier for partisan gerrymanders to continue fixing the game and keep on winning.
* Did you think Walker would be swayed towards changes to the Power Grab bill by the articulate pleas of the many hundreds voters who sat through the Legislature's set-piece hearings into the Power Grab? No, because the outcome was dictated in advance, in secret, by the elitist neo-Soviet-style legislative commissars whose allegiances are, as is Walker's, first to Walker and then to big business, not to the people and the true business of democratic self-government.
* Were you surprised that Walker ultimately turned a deaf ear about the Power Grab measures to Evers, or to Doyle and McCallum - - those two former Governors from different parties - - and all who made similar, reasonable appeals for depth to a shallow man and for equity to an unreasonable incumbent?
* Did any of you really think that Walker might be swayed by Sheldon Lubar, the GOP's Milwaukee-based businessman and unimpeachable elder statesman?
'No,' because you knew that Walker would be Walker.
And 'No" to Evers, McCallum and Doyle, because while they share a title with Walker, he lacks the requisite humility to acknowledge any common bond with them, let alone to principles and a sense of history outside of his self-proclaimed 'legacy' that would validate his commonality them, or with anything other than his reflection in the mirror.
And especially 'no' to Lubar. Because Walker, completely self-absorbed, had already gotten what he wanted from Lubar: grifted, second-hand credibility. And money.
So, mercifully, this round of dealing with Walker is closing, and while court actions await, we know that in just a few weeks Wisconsin will have state constitutional officers who will honor election outcomes, and who will swear their oaths of office without crossing their fingers behind their backs and giving you their middle one when your back is turned.
No more chief executing with flaming pants, a chamber of commerce-inspired seizure of public resources, and to the dispensing of official favors to any and every partisan GOP bellhop and special interest with a checkbook in one hand and a back-scratcher in the other.
What's finally tied up with Walker's signature, noxious as it is, is the beginning of the end of the lying. All of it.
On, Wisconsin.
2 comments:
Just a few days before this shrinking little man becomes small enough to vanish altogether. Celebration on the horizon!
Sadly,I doubt he will leave Wisconsin. He will continue to be a boil on our fine state. He will leave the Governor's office and probably through the tunnel, "proud of his last 8 years." We can begin to repair the damage he has done to the fabric of Wisconsin. Good riddance SKW.
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