{"id":187823,"date":"2011-02-23T19:52:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-24T00:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2011\/02\/23\/scott-walker-started-as-a-tragedy-and-is-finishing-as-a-comedy\/"},"modified":"2011-02-23T19:52:00","modified_gmt":"2011-02-24T00:52:00","slug":"scott-walker-started-as-a-tragedy-and-is-finishing-as-a-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2011\/02\/23\/scott-walker-started-as-a-tragedy-and-is-finishing-as-a-comedy\/","title":{"rendered":"Scott Walker Started as a Tragedy, and is Finishing as a Comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So, the Republican Party&#8217;s next &#8220;Great White Hope,&#8221; Wisconsin governor Scott Walker&#8217;s assault on the right to unionize, has gone from the Republican&#8217;s best plan for tearing down the base of the Democratic party to a rather unpopular farce.<\/p>\n<p>First, attempts in Indiana Republicans to ape<sup>*<\/sup> Wisconsin led to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.indystar.com\/article\/20110222\/NEWS\/110222004\/House-Democrats-flee-Indiana-stop-votes\">Indiana lawmakers fleeing the state to stop the effort<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know what this sh%$ is doing for the economies of Wisconsin and Indiana, but it sure is boosting the hospitality industry in Illinois.<\/p>\n<p>Also, it is becoming increasingly apparent that these actions are unpopular, the polls are pretty strongly against it, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.talkingpointsmemo.com\/archives\/2011\/02\/excellent_news_for_gov_walker.php\">Republican notables are backing away from the idea<\/a>, with Indiana governor Mitch Daniels telling the &#8216;Phants in his legislature to kill the bill, and Florida governor, and \u00fcber-Teabagger, Rick Scott coming out against the idea.<\/p>\n<p>So it already looks like this strategy is playing a lot like the 1995 government shutdown, and now <a href=\"http:\/\/www.buffalobeast.com\/?p=5045\">Scott Walker got punked<\/a> by the editor of the <i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.buffalobeast.com\/\">Buffalo Beast<\/a><\/i>, who pretended to be David Koch.<\/p>\n<p>The interesting take aways here is that he&#8217;s not seeing any need to compromise and is planning to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Dock the state Senator&#8217;s pay.<\/li>\n<li>Looking at going after them on ethics violations, and a possible felony, if they took food or lodging assistance from unions. (FWIW, he accepted an invite from &#8220;David Koch&#8221; for a flight out to California and being put up there later in the call)<\/li>\n<li>That he&#8217;s intending to organize a &#8220;summit&#8221; of some sort with the Democrats, and use their presence to push the vote through while they are in the room with him (it&#8217;s a quorum\/recess game).<\/li>\n<li>Discussed planting &#8220;troublemakers&#8221; with the activists to either create bad press, or provide an excuse to crack down.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, he&#8217;s now on tape admitting that he cannot be trusted to negotiate in good faith, the quote is: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I would be willing to sit down and talk to him, the assembly Democrat leader, plus the other two <span style=\"color: blue;\">Republican leaders\u2014talk, not negotiate and listen to what they have to say if they will in turn\u2014but I\u2019ll only do it if all 14 of them will come back and sit down in the state assembly\u2026legally, we believe, once they\u2019ve gone into session, they don\u2019t physically have to be there. If they\u2019re actually in session for that day, and they take a recess, the 19 Senate Republicans could then go into action and they\u2019d have quorum\u2026so we\u2019re double checking that. If you heard I was going to talk to them that\u2019s the only reason why. We\u2019d only do it if they came back to the capital with all 14 of them\u2026<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So he&#8217;s been caught on tape admitting that he would basically launch a sneak attack during peace talks, good luck getting anyone to trust you ever again.<\/p>\n<p><sup>*<\/sup><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\">No offense intended to primates.  I&#8217;m using the verb form, and I can understand how simians might find comparing them to Republicans to be offensive.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The (legal in Wisconsin) tape of the phone call and the transcript after the break:<\/p>\n<p><a name='more'><\/a><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"180\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WBnSv3a6Nh4\" title=\"YouTube video player\" width=\"200\"><\/iframe><br \/>Part 1<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"180\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Z3a2pYGr7-k\" title=\"YouTube video player\" width=\"200\"><\/iframe><br \/>Part 2<\/p>\n<p>Transcript follows:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: Hi; this is Scott Walker.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: Scott! David Koch. How are you?<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: Hey, David! I\u2019m good. And yourself?<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: I\u2019m very well. I\u2019m a little disheartened by the situation there, but, uh, what\u2019s the latest?<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: Well, we\u2019re actually hanging pretty tough. I mean\u2014you know, amazingly there\u2019s a much smaller group of protesters\u2014almost all of whom are in from other states today. The State Assembly is taking the bill up\u2014getting it all the way to the last point it can be at where it\u2019s unamendable. But they\u2019re waiting to pass it until the Senate\u2019s\u2014the Senate Democrats, excuse me, the assembly Democrats have about a hundred amendments they\u2019re going through. The state Senate still has the 14 members missing but what they\u2019re doing today is bringing up all sorts of other non-fiscal items, many of which are things members in the Democratic side care about. And each day we\u2019re going to ratchet it up a little bit\u2026. The Senate majority leader had a great plan he told about this morning\u2014he told the Senate Democrats about and he\u2019s going to announce it later today, and that is: The Senate organization committee is going to meet and pass a rule that says if you don\u2019t show up for two consecutive days on a session day\u2014in the state Senate, the Senate chief clerk\u2014it\u2019s a little procedural thing here, but\u2014can actually have your payroll stopped from being automatically deducted\u2014<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: Beautiful.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: \u2014into your checking account and instead\u2014you still get a check, but the check has to be personally picked up and he\u2019s instructing them\u2014which we just loved\u2014to lock them in their desk on the floor of the state Senate.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: Now you\u2019re not talking to any of these Democrat bastards, are you?<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: Ah, I\u2014there\u2019s one guy that\u2019s actually voted with me on a bunch of things I called on Saturday for about 45 minutes, mainly to tell him that while I appreciate his friendship and he\u2019s worked with us on other things, to tell him I wasn\u2019t going to budge.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: Goddamn right!<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: \u2026his name is Tim Cullen\u2014<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: All right, I\u2019ll have to give that man a call.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: Well, actually, in his case I wouldn\u2019t call him and I\u2019ll tell you why: he\u2019s pretty reasonable but he\u2019s not one of us\u2026<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: Now who can we get to budge on this collective bargaining?<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: \u2026I think the paycheck will have an impact\u2026secondly, one of the things we\u2019re looking at next\u2026we\u2019re still waiting on an opinion to see if the unions have been paying to put these guys up out of state. We think there\u2019s at minimum an ethics violation if not an outright felony.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: Well, they\u2019re probably putting hobos in suits.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: Yeah.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: That\u2019s what we do. Sometimes.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: I mean paying for the senators to be put up. I know they\u2019re paying for these guy\u2014I mean, people can pay for protesters to come in and that\u2019s not an ethics code, but, I mean, literally if the unions are paying the 14 senators\u2014their food, their lodging, anything like that\u2026[*** Important regarding his later acceptance of a Koch offer to \u201cshow him a good time.\u201d ***]<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">[I was stunned. I am stunned. In the interest of expediting the release of this story, here are the juiciest bits:]<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: \u2026I\u2019ve got layoff notices ready\u2026<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: Beautiful; beautiful. Gotta crush that union.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: [bragging about how he doesn&#8217;t budge]\u2026I would be willing to sit down and talk to him, the assembly Democrat leader, plus the other two Republican leaders\u2014talk, not negotiate and listen to what they have to say if they will in turn\u2014but I\u2019ll only do it if all 14 of them will come back and sit down in the state assembly\u2026legally, we believe, once they\u2019ve gone into session, they don\u2019t physically have to be there. If they\u2019re actually in session for that day, and they take a recess, the 19 Senate Republicans could then go into action and they\u2019d have quorum\u2026so we\u2019re double checking that. If you heard I was going to talk to them that\u2019s the only reason why. We\u2019d only do it if they came back to the capital with all 14 of them\u2026<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: Bring a baseball bat. That\u2019s what I\u2019d do.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: I have one in my office; you\u2019d be happy with that. I have a slugger with my name on it.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: Beautiful.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: [union-bashing&#8230;]<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: Beautiful.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: So this is ground zero, there\u2019s no doubt about it. [Talks about a \u201cgreat\u201d NYT piece of \u201cobjective journalism.\u201d Talks about how most private blue-collar workers have turned against public, unionized workers.]\u2026So I went through and called a handful, a dozen or so lawmakers I worry about each day and said, \u201cEveryone, we should get that story printed out and send it to anyone giving you grief.\u201d<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: Goddamn right! We, uh, we sent, uh, Andrew Breitbart down there.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker:Yeah.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: Yeah.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: Good stuff.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: He\u2019s our man, you know.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: [blah about his press conferences, attacking Obama, and all the great press he&#8217;s getting.] Brian [Sadoval], the new Governor of Nevada, called me the last night he said\u2014he was out in the Lincoln Day Circuit in the last two weekends and he was kidding me, he said, \u201cScott, don\u2019t come to Nevada because I\u2019d be afraid you beat me running for governor.\u201d That\u2019s all they want to talk about is what are you doing to help the governor of Wisconsin. I talk to Kasich every day\u2014John\u2019s gotta stand firm in Ohio. I think we could do the same thing with Vic Scott in Florida. I think, uh, Snyder\u2014if he got a little more support\u2014probably could do that in Michigan. You start going down the list there\u2019s a lot of us new governors that got elected to do something big.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: You\u2019re the first domino.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: Yep. This is our moment.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: Now what else could we do for you down there?<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: Well the biggest thing would be\u2014and your guy on the ground [Americans For Prosperity president Tim Phillips] is probably seeing this [stuff about all the people protesting, and some of them flip him off].<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">[Abrupt end of first recording, and start of second.]<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: [Bullshit about doing the right thing and getting flipped off by \u201cunion bulls,\u201d and the decreasing number of protesters. Or some such.]<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: We\u2019ll back you any way we can. What we were thinking about the crowd was, uh, was planting some troublemakers.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: You know, well, the only problem with that \u2014because we thought about that. The problem\u2014the, my only gut reaction to that is right now the lawmakers I\u2019ve talked to have just completely had it with them, the public is not really fond of this\u2026[explains that planting troublemakers may not work.] My only fear would be if there\u2019s a ruckus caused is that maybe the governor has to settle to solve all these problems\u2026[something about &#8217;60s liberals.]\u2026Let \u2018em protest all they want\u2026Sooner or later the media stops finding it interesting.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: Well, not the liberal bastards on MSNBC.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: Oh yeah, but who watches that? I went on \u201cMorning Joe\u201d this morning. I like it because I just like being combative with those guys, but, uh. You know they\u2019re off the deep end.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: Joe\u2014Joe\u2019s a good guy. He\u2019s one of us.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: Yeah, he\u2019s all right. He was fair to me\u2026[bashes NY Senator Chuck Schumer, who was also on the program.]<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: Beautiful; beautiful. You gotta love that Mika Brzezinski; she\u2019s a real piece of ass.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: Oh yeah. [story about when he hung out with human pig Jim Sensenbrenner at some D.C. function and he was sitting next to Brzezinski and her father, and their guest was David Axelrod. He introduced himself.]<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: That son of a bitch!<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: Yeah no kidding huh?\u2026<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: Well, good; good. Good catching up with ya\u2019.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: This is an exciting time [blah, blah, blah, Super Bowl reference followed by an odd story of pulling out a picture of Ronald Reagan and explaining to his staff the plan to crush the union the same way Reagan fired the air traffic controllers]\u2026that was the first crack in the Berlin Wall because the Communists then knew Reagan wasn\u2019t a pushover. [Blah, blah, blah. He&#8217;s exactly like Reagan. Won&#8217;t shut up about how awesome he is.]<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: [Laughs] Well, I tell you what, Scott: once you crush these bastards I\u2019ll fly you out to Cali and really show you a good time.<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: All right, that would be outstanding. [*** Ethical violation much? ***] Thanks for all the support\u2026it\u2019s all about getting our freedoms back\u2026<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: Absolutely. And, you know, we have a little bit of a vested interest as well. [Laughs]<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Walker: [Blah] Thanks a million!<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: blue;\">Koch: Bye-bye!<\/div>\n<p>Walker: Bye.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So, the Republican Party&#8217;s next &#8220;Great White Hope,&#8221; Wisconsin governor Scott Walker&#8217;s assault on the right to unionize, has gone from the Republican&#8217;s best plan for tearing down the base of the Democratic party to a rather unpopular farce. First, attempts in Indiana Republicans to ape* Wisconsin led to Indiana lawmakers fleeing the state to &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[970,1040,1023,978],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-former-soviet-union","category-labor","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187823"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187823\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}