Ryan and Walker Are Both Battered by Provincialism and Narcissism

Update: Ayn Rand would have been proud: Freedom Caucus Majority Backs Paul Ryan for House Speaker (New York Times). Look out Social Security and Medicare, there's a new speaker in town.

Scott Walker and Paul Ryan are not Wisconsin's finest.

Not towering intellects. Not dedicated public servants. Not civil rights activists. Not teachers, or writers or artists, handymen. One could on.

No, Walker and Ryan are victims, suffering from personality disorders, extreme even for lifelong politicians.

Witness the megalomaniacal Walker's 2016 run for the presidency marked by delusions of grandeur of a historical figure on a march to save the United States, as ordered by god (Mal Contends). The journey lasted 70 days, (Johnson, Washington Post).

Walker's political BFF, Paul Ryan, looks to abort his qualified run for the Speaker of the House after 24 hours (Marshall, Talking Points Memo (TPM)).

Turns out House rightists, the Freedom Caucus, are offended by Walker's demands. Notes TPM's Marshall:

Caucus co-founder Matt Salmon compared Ryan's demands for family time to 'interviewing a maid for a job and she says, ‘I don’t clean windows, I don’t do floors, I don’t do beds, these are the hours I’ll work.'

Ryan's pronouncement that he "cannot and will not give up my family time," is not resonating with every American family lacking Ryan's entitlements and privileges. Moreover, Ryan's penchant to lie, exposed repeatedly by Paul Krugman, is becoming conventional wisdom.

Ryan's vainglorious ideal of a Speaker Ryan with his demands of loyalty and more power may have lasted less than a hurried hump day.

Walker and Ryan are not students of history.

No, they're just a couple of corrupt politicians from Wisconsin who made the transformation from being astonished their schemes have gone on as long as they have, to being a baleful type of political figure who actually believes aides' press releases and the fawning accolades and obsequious praise that come with taking money, following orders and forgetting the people of Wisconsin whom they were elected to represent.

Ryan will become a laughing stock fast.

Scott Walker on CNN—"I’m willing to take on anyone"

Scott Walker is one tough guy.

Facing a campaign meltdown, Walker appears to be trying to become the character, Alex 'Tig' Trager, in Sons of Anarchy (TM and ©2015 FX Networks, LLC) riding a Harley around and killing people who give SAMCRO a bad time.

That was a fun show, but you know, it was television.

Check out Raw Story's report of Walker's interview today on CNN in which Walker says, "I’m willing to take on anyone," after refusing to answer the question stating the Koch brothers are a "special interest."

Note to Scott Walker, you're going have to grow up, man. Below, Scott Walker's new face in the mirror this week:

Scott Walker—"I’m the one they fear most"

Scott Walker - They fear me
most. And I want more
military spending because
I'm strong, bold, and brave!

"I’m the one they [non-GOP general election voters] fear most." (Hahn, Des Moines Register)

Thus spake Scott Walker in Tipton, Iowa this weekend.

Scott, don't you know that in the field of whacks, most of America would love for the Republican Party to offer you up as the nominee?

Don't you know that?

By now you have been advised of many political writers questioning your viability as a candidate for the presidency, saying you lack the intelligence and the policy knowledge.

A bold proposal

How about you come to Madison, Wisconsin and hold your first unscripted, town-hall-style meeting with no screenings of questions or people?

A Wisconsin resident comes up to the mic and asks you a question, and leaves (within the realm of reason) when she or he is satisfied you actually answered the question. Follow-up questions are encouraged.

And the press is invited afterwards to ask you about your performance. How about it, Scott? Be bold.

Scott Walker Tumbles to Three Percent in Iowa in Latest Poll

First to 10th in Less Than Two Months of the Official 'Scott Walker for America' Launch

John McCormick reports on Scott Walker's free fall to the bottom in Iowa today.

McCormick writes:

Scott Walker, the one-time Republican front-runner in Iowa, has taken a precipitous fall in a new poll of those likely to vote in the first presidential nomination contest on Feb. 1.

The Wisconsin governor, who is set to campaign in Iowa this weekend, was backed by just 3 percent of likely Iowa caucus participants in the latest Quinnipiac University poll. (Bloomberg Politics)

Maybe the good GOP-voting folks in Iowa didn't notice the narrow-shouldered governor riding through New Hampshire on a Harley Davidson earlier this week.

Walker's tough, unintimidated and never backs down—just like the character, Alex 'Tig' Trager, in Sons of Anarchy (TM & ©2015 FX Networks, LLC). Maybe that's who Walker wants to be when he grows up.

Hillary Clinton ridiculed the plummeting Walker in Milwaukee yesterday: "It seems to me, just observing him, that Governor Walker thinks because he busts unions, starves universities, guts public education, demeans women, scapegoats teachers, nurses and firefighters, he's some kind of tough guy on his motorcycle." (CBS News)

Hillary has Walker down, though she did omit the fact Walker is a lightweight, pathological liar and coward.

"[T]hroughout his career, Walker didn’t have to deal with a [national] media that never hesitated to declare him dumb, dull, or dead at the first whiff of a gaffe," notes Jack Craver in The Atlantic.

Scott Walker is Wisconsin's problem again. The nation took a whiff and is leaving Walker for the crows.

Scott Walker Lacks the Intelligence to Serve as President

Scott Walker stumped again as he does nothing to dispel
doubts about his intelligence while campaigning
in New Hampshire. From the Chris Hayes Show

Scott Walker: "There is no such thing as a hypothetical."
-
I thought there were hypotheticals—instructive to understanding what would/should occur in future circumstances.

Typically, when Scott Walker serves up a non-sequitur and incoherent response to the rare question to which he replies in public, a spokesperson and Milwaukee's talk radio step up to clarify what Walker meant to say.

But c'mon Wisconsin Republicans, admit it: Walker lacks the intellect to be president.

Walker—facing plummeting poll numbers and feeling the heat "he has raised questions about if he is actually smart enough to run for president," in the words of a New Hampshire Republican, (Glueck, The Politico)—humiliated himself again trying to respond to an ABC News reporter during a press gaggle Monday in Rochester.

Campaigning in New Hampshire on Labor Day, Scott Walker offered a ridiculous and contradictory response when pressed about what he would do to handle the Syrian Migrant-Refugee crisis. [Segment - All In with Chris Hayes 9/8/15 - 2016 candidates skip specifics on refugee crisis]

In a video (below) of a 2:54-minute segment, Walker became testy with an ABC News reporter and veered once again into incoherence asserting, "There is no such thing as a hypothetical," before offering his opinion of what "people need to do" when he assumed the office of the presidency in January 2017.

Walker should perhaps learn what conditional questions, subjunctive moods and hypotheticals really are.

If a candidate for public office takes the position that no hypothetical questions may be responded to because she or he has not assumed office, what is to become of the campaign pledge, promise and assurance? What about public policy? It can't be discussed because it has not been enacted yet?

Jordyn Phelps of ABC News offers:

As Europe grapples with the mass migration of more than 300,000 refugees fleeing war in Syria, Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker won’t say whether the United States should open its doors to absorb more of the migrants.

Walker’s reason for not taking a stand is that he says it would be hypothetical for him to do so since he is not currently the president. 

A transcript of the exchange is below:

ABC News Reporter: What would you do to address the migrants who are currently fleeing into Europe? Does (sic), should the U.S. accept some of those migrants into the country?

Scott Walker: "Well, again the problem is we're ignoring the basis of the core of the problem. The problem is this president has had a weak stance in terms of taking on ISIS."

ABC News Reporter: But to follow up, if you were president today, what would you do?

Scott Walker: "I'm not president today, and I can't be president today. I'm going to be president in January of 2017 and I'm telling you what people need to do. Everybody wants to talk about hypotheticals. There is no such thing as a hypothetical."

[Notes Jaime Fuller in New York Magazine: "(This is) a sentence that probably would have moved Socrates to set Walker's pants on fire himself." Note to Mr Fuller: See Walker's May 2015 "That's a hypothetical question in the past. We're going to talk about the future," before Walker rushed away from a group of reporters in Michigan. (Mal Contends and Bloomberg Politics News, Scott Walker Tiptoes Past Michigan Reporters' Most Common Question). Hypothetically, I think Socrates would have poisoned Scott Walker out of exasperation.]

ABC News Reporter: Governor, the fact that these refugees need a place to go is not a hypothetical, and Pope Francis has even come in and said that countries need to help them. I mean, should the U.S. play an active role?

Scott Walker:  "Again. I'm taking about what I'll do as president ... that will be a year and half from now."
---
In terms of being president were such a phenomenon to take place, Scott Walker does not, like, know what he should do because of his new epistemological rule: "There is no such thing as a hypothetical." Or is this a new new metaphysics discovered on the presidential campaign trail, 2015? The Bradley Center is calling you, Scott Walker.

Scott Walker—Unintimidated Veers into Uninformed and Unprepared

Questions abound if Scott Walker is actually smart enough to run for president

Katie Glueck in The Politico reports from the campaign trail, citing Republicans speaking on background, ripping Scott Walker as a lightweight.

Glueck's sources offer ugly comments from Republicans for Governor Meltdown.

Writes Glueck:

'[Walker] can't seem to find his way on any given issue with a handheld GPS,' an Iowa Republican said of Walker. "He's been on all three sides of every two-sided issue. For the last two months hasn't made a single policy pronouncement that he or his staff hasn't had to clarify or clear up within two hours. When you're reduced to saying 'yeah' doesn't mean 'yes,' you're in trouble. 'Unintimidated' has given way to 'uninformed' and 'unprepared.'" ...

The GOP insiders' criticism of Walker was rooted in the sense that his positions on a number of policy issues, from immigration to abortion, have shifted repeatedly, and that he has recently attempted to pander to Donald Trump voters.

'[That] plunge [in the polls] has come as a result of his inability to articulate where he stands on a single issue,' an Iowa Republican said. 'Authenticity matters in Iowa. Big time. In fact, it's the only thing that matters. Scott Walker advocated building a wall between the U.S. and Canada. How do you NOT lose the summer with a statement like that?' ...

Walker [also] left Granite Staters unimpressed.

'He's lost his lead in the make or break Iowa caucuses. He has alienated donors with his pandering to the base of the party. He is woefully unprepared in interviews. He has cemented his reputation as a shameless flip-flopper, and worst of all he has raised questions about if he is actually smart enough to run for president,' said a New Hampshire Republican.

---
Running for home on rightwing radio, Walker answered the question if he were actually smart enough to run for president. He's not.

Writes Trip Gabriel in the New York Times:

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin appeared less clear on his position [on a Kentucky clerk defying the U.S. Supreme Court and a federal judge on marriage equity]. Asked by the radio host Laura Ingraham on Thursday if Ms. Davis should be compelled to issue marriage licenses, Mr. Walker said:

'It’s a balance that you’ve got to have in America between the laws that are out there, but ultimately ensuring the Constitution is upheld. I read that the Constitution is very clear, that people have the freedom of religion. That means you have the freedom to practice your religious beliefs out there.' 

In Walker's jurisprudence, any public official can practice his or her religious beliefs in refusing performance of civic duties—denying due process and equal protection to individuals because, for example, a county clerk's religion does not allow for blacks and whites to marry, same-sex couples to marry, Jews and Gentiles—Walker reads in the Unites States Constitution.

That the United States Supreme Court has ruled definitively in June "that no longer may this liberty [to marry] be denied" in direct opposition to Davis and Walker's position is of no consequence "out there."

For Scott Walker's edification, Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court:

"No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right."

Desperate Scott Walker Says Obama Caused Police Killings

As Scott Walker is found out as an empty suit, the Wisconsin governor has come home to what launched and sustained his career—appeals to racism, white resentment and fear of black men. (MacGillis, TNR)

After the recent killings of two police officers in Texas and Illinois, Walker has found the culprit: President Obama, the first black president.

That's big and bold. It's also shameful, and disrespectful to the victims' families to cynically use tragedy in a political move Walker hopes will revive his moribund campaign, and get him some media headlines.

Walker writes in Hot Air: "In the last six years under President Obama, we’ve seen a rise in anti-police rhetoric. Instead of hope and change, we’ve seen racial tensions worsen and a tendency to use law enforcement as a scapegoat. This kind of attitude has created a culture in which we all too often see demonstrations and chants where people describe police as 'pigs' and call for them to be 'fried like bacon.' This inflammatory and disgusting rhetoric has real consequences for the safety of officers who put their lives on the line for us and hampers their ability to serve the communities that need their help. ... As president, that’s what I’m going to do to make us a united America once again."

Let's be honest. Scott Walker didn't write this column, a staffer did under Scott Walker's name.

Some facts for the divide-and-conquer Walker and his appalling campaign:

• "The suspect in the slaying of Texas sheriff's Deputy Darren Goforth was found mentally incompetent in 2012 to stand trial on a felony assault charge, a prosecutor said Monday." (CNN) The idiot in question is not a man with whom anyone can reason.
• President Obama phoned the victim's family and released a statement in late August slamming the killing. (Yahoo News)
• "Walker is simply wrong when he tries to use Goforth’s death to say that more oversight and scrutiny of cops have made the job more dangerous. There’s just no evidence of that. All the available evidence suggests precisely the opposite." (Balko, Washington Post)
• With respect to the killing of the Illinois officer, Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz, not even Illinois law enforcement knows what happened as a massive manhunt continues into Labor Day weekend involving three suspects. (AP)

Not that facts have ever mattered to the pathological liar Walker who disgraces Wisconsin, and in particular Milwaukee County and military veterans.

Bill O'Reilly, Ted Cruz, Breitbart and the rightwing crazies have found the target: Protesting black people, and anyone found sympathetic to civil rights groups and grieving black families must be held accountable.

This does not sit well with decent people fed up with Walker and the rightwing's toxic racial politics of white resentment.

Write Mary Spicuzza and Jason Stein of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

State Rep. Mandela Barnes (D-Milwaukee) immediately dismissed Walker's comments as a tactic to draw attention to his campaign and reverse a recent slide in the polls. (In the latest national poll released Thursday, Walker placed eighth among GOP candidates with 3%.)

'It's a desperate move. It's absolutely a cry for attention,' Barnes said. 'You latch onto an emotional issue.  ...

State Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) [called] on the governor to apologize to the families of slain officers for what she said was an attempt to play politics with their deaths.

Walker's comments prove he will 'say anything to get elected. He knows darn well that President Obama is not responsible for the murder of law enforcement officers and to insinuate otherwise is disgusting,' Taylor said in a statement.

Scott Walker isn't fooling many people.

And there are numerous reasons why Scott Walker is simply not fit to be the next president.

His latest stunt, though, is low even by Walker's fetid standards.

The die has been cast by Walker, who managed to do a lot of damage in Wisconsin in playing his games of division and scapegoating.

Nationally, the word is out Scott Walker lacks the intellect and policy knowledge to seriously compete on the national stage.

Less known is the fact the lifelong politician Scott Walker lacks a moral center beyond his political ambitions, and will say anything to advance his political career, which is to say Scott Walker lacks the character to hold public office or serve in a position of public trust.

There's a reason Scott Walker never served his country.

Never worked in the Civil Rights movement.

Never worked against segregation and poverty.

Never stood up for anyone beyond himself, using people when he could and surrounding himself with sycophants and liars, the type of people who would embezzle money from a military veterans' fund with Scott Walker lying and disrespecting veterans the whole way down the sewer. (Bice. Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. May 31, 2012)

It's an act of faith to believe Walker's journey does not lead to the United States presidency.

Scott Walker Fading

'Scott Walker's foreign policy experience is limited to breakfast at the old International House of Pancakes, as he threatens to start at least two wars upon taking office'

Of increasing concern to Scott Walker is what the Washington Post calls persistent "questions about his readiness to handle the problems and unexpected challenges that confront every president" (Dan Balz and Jenna Johnson, Post).

Yeah?

The intrepid Scott Walker's reboot has begun: Let's build a wall between the United States and Canada, said Walker this weekend.

That's big and bold; thanks Scott for keeping us safe.

Of course, those big bodies of water to Wisconsin's north and east—the Great Lakes that glaciers (I mean god) bestowed—they should be quarantined by the U.S. Navy and not because of invasive species and Canadians (they're okay).

Muslim terrorists could board a ship—disguised with 1,550-horsepower Mercury Marine engines (those Muslims are clever heathens)—begin at Thunder Bay, Ontario and leisurely boat across Lake Superior, suddenly storm the Apostle Islands way up north off the Bayfield Peninsula, disembark at Red Cliff and then drive in waiting Ford trucks due south to our doom in Richland and Dane County.

Then, we'll all pay and wish we had listened to Mr. Churchill, or whoever Walker sees in the mirror this week.
---

Balz and Johnson's prose in the Post is Washington-polite talk for Scott Walker doesn't know anything no matter how much money and propaganda Walker gets from ALEC, the Koch Brothers, the Bradley Foundation, the MacIver Institute, the Wisconsin Reporter, Media Trackers, and the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, and other Republican Party-front groups.

Paul Fanlund of the Capital Times offers up a must-read narrative this morning.

Here's an excerpt:

Writes Fanlund:

Day after day, our Republican governor comes off as increasingly cartoonish in the national media, a small figure waving his arms behind Trump, seeming to shout 'Me too! Me too!'

Walker, you see, has apparently convinced himself he represents a one-man profile in courage for eviscerating union rights in Wisconsin, even though he was carried by millionaire and billionaire donors and strategists, a Republican-controlled Legislature, a compliant and politicized state Supreme Court and an off-balance and underperforming state Democratic Party.

This self-aggrandizement showed itself in his autobiography, 'Unintimidated,' in which he described his lifelong admiration of Reagan and famously asserted that the president’s decision to fire striking air traffic controllers somehow intimidated the Soviet Union and hastened its demise.

That sort of preposterous claim foreshadowed other bizarre assertions by Walker, such as that facing down angry schoolteachers somehow equips him to defeat Islamic State terrorists. (That nugget was so daffy that it keeps getting recycled, cut-and-paste style, whenever national reporters summarize Walker’s many odd worldviews.)

His recent pattern is to take an outlandishly extreme position—for example, denying citizenship to children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants—only to qualify that position, and, on this topic, qualify it again. Read a headline in New York Magazine: 'Scott Walker clarifies his third position on birthright citizenship.'

Timothy Egan of the New York Times nicely summed up Walker’s would-be machismo: 'Scott Walker, the governor whose foreign policy experience is limited to breakfast at the old International House of Pancakes, threatens to start at least two wars upon taking office. He promises to use military action if necessary to coax Iran into doing what he wants it to do. He also wants to pick a fight with Russia, sending weapons to Ukraine and erecting a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.' 

Bear in mind, like Scott says, this a marathon, not a sprint.

Scott Walker Can't Answer Basic Questions about Pakistan

Scott Walker cannot field the most basic questions on foreign policy, specifically Pakistan.

Cognitive Dissidence has the story.

Trump's Misogyny Draws Mere Tweet from Scott Walker

Wisconsin GOP Display at August
State Fair Echoes Trump Misogyny

Republican candidates can't figure out why or how to challenge their fellow misogynist and his latest rant against Fox News anchor, Megyn Kelly.

Scott Walker—in a profile in cowardice—could only manage a weak and vaguely-worded tweet of objection to Donald Trump (Martin, Haberman, New York Times).

After disinviting Donald Trump to a forum this weekend, RedState's Erick Erickson featured 10 of the Republican candidates in a rightwing gathering and of this group only Jeb Bush mentioned Trump, saying Trump's attack on Fox anchor Kelly is not good politics because it offended 53 percent of voters, women.

Following last Thursday's debate, Trump had said of Kelly, "You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever" in an interview on CNN Friday night (Martin, Haberman, New York Times).

Erickson had questioned Trump's "decency" in explaining his disinvitation of Trump, later saying Saturday at the Atlanta gathering that "I don't want my daughter in the room with Donald Trump tonight, so he's not invited. If our standard-bearer has to resort to that, then we need a new standard-bearer." (CNN)

Decency.

That's one quality lacking in Scott Walker, and is not prominent in the Republican Party's field for the presidency.

Scott Walker Enters Debate Under Cloud of Criminality

Scott Walker still refuses to
face Wisconsin people

Scott Walker is a scandal-plagued candidate for the presidency who still refuses answers to his clear acts of felonious criminality.

With the exception of Gov. Chris Christie (NJ) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) Walker enters tonight's debate with the most unanswered questions on his conduct in office, raising public integrity questions from which Walker has run.

Don't look for tonight's debate moderators, Fox News hosts Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace, to ask Scott Walker the question to which Wallace never received an answer from Walker last year: "Did you have your own private e-mail account?" (Mal Contends) (ThinkProgress)

Walker refused to answer Wallace's question because Walker knew what he did was illegal.

Chris Wallace like the Wisconsin media won't be clamoring for an answer to why Walker was running for governor on an illegal email system on public property and violating Wisconsin's Open Records law he unsuccessfully tried to gut this year. But if Wallace took seriously his profession as a journalist, he would ask Walker the same question. (Mal Contends) (ThinkProgress)

Walker's aborted gutting of the Open Records law earlier this year raises the same issue that Walker's flaunting of the Open Records law raised during Walker tenure as Milwaukee County Executive.

If Milwaukee County workers in Walker's administration (2002-10) were doing nothing wrong, why should they be using a private e-mail account? Did you have your own private e-mail account?

Noted before, Walker used the Milwaukee County Executive's office as a campaign machine for governor because he felt is he was entitled; Walker violated open records law because he felt he was entitled; and Walker won't talk to the press now because he knows as well that he is neck-deep in uncharged crimes.
 ---
From 2014:

Question from Luke, Green Bay, Wisconsin. - A simple yes or no question "Did you Governor Walker know of the secret e-mail system?" Why won't he just answer the question? We are paying his salary. It is a simple yes-no question.

Answer from Daniel Bice, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel - Why won't he answer the question? My guess: He is paying his lawyers very good money, and they have told him, "Do not answer that question."

-- From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Columnist Dan Bice's Online Question and Answer February 2014) (Mal Contends)

Say what your will about Chris Christie, unlike Scott Walker, Christie does not run from questions.

From Chris Wallace last year:

In Wisconsin Supreme Court, Fix Is in for Scott Walker

The Koch brothers have made their intentions public to buy the U.S. presidency with Scott Walker as their front-man, as Scott Walker limits his appearances before the press (Byers, The Politico), (Confessore, NYT), (Beck, Wisconsin State Journal), (Katz, New York Daily News), (Fischer, PRWatch).

What the national commentariat is missing is that this suggests that the two John Doe cases—investigating Walker's illegal direction and coordination of independent and advocacy money—before the Wisconsin Supreme Court are already decided, and four members of the Court can no longer be regarded as anything but an arm of the Republican moneyed interests who funded their campaigns (See Bottari, Walker's Dark Money Allies Orchestrate Coup of the Courts at PRWatch).

The Koch brothers wouldn't bother with Walker if they didn't know the outcome at the Court now still ostensibly deliberating.

The rightwing media is ratcheting up its campaign to recast the bipartisan John Doe II probe as a partisan abuse of power in anticipation of the Court's pro-Walker ruling (French, National Review).

So, when the four Republican justices rule for Walker, all the rightwing chorus will sing: We told you so, as though the four justices brought by GOP money were not part of the problem.

There is of course the Due Process Clause case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, 5-4 by Justice Kennedy, Caperton v. Massey (2009) (Brennen Center for Justice).

Writes Justice Kennedy: "We conclude that there is a serious risk of actual bias—based on objective and reasonable perceptions—when a person with a personal stake in a particular case had a significant and disproportionate influence in placing the judge on the case by raising funds or directing the judge's election campaign when the case was pending or imminent. The inquiry centers on the contribution's relative size in comparison to the total amount of money contributed to the campaign, the total amount spent in the election, and the apparent effect such contribution had on the outcome of the election."

Facing the litigant-purchased Wisconsin Court, the John Doe probe cases will take years to reach the High Court, and by that time, the presidential race will be over and Caperton won't present a problem for the then-former-presidential candidate, Scott Walker.

American Rightwing Questioning Scott Walker

The rightwing is beginning to see Scott Walker is more craven and less principled than hoped.

Daniel Payne writing in the rightwing The Federalist calls out Scott Walker yesterday, and it has nothing to do about Walker secretly directing dark money contributions.

Payne writes about Walker's deep-sixing communications consultant Liz Mair.

"Mair’s departure, in other words, wasn’t about making 'people’s' lives better, it was more along the lines of making Scott Walker’s life better, and easier," writes Payne. "... [Walker's] response to Mair’s garden-variety opinion is disappointing and troubling, indicating that he’s less of a reformer than we thought, and less willing to take risks that might improve the country as a whole."

Eliana Johnson at the National Review Online writes, "Just a few months into the long 2016 primary campaign, the whispered doubts about whether Walker can successfully scale up are louder than ever."

Walker pushed cultural, racist appeals—Resistance remains strong

Scott Walker successfully hit targeted cultural demographics with his out-of-state $10s millions.

A mere two votes per ward separated the two candidates' totals with 99 percent reporting, but lies and money can buy a non-presidential election in Wisconsin.

Walker attacked recall elections, democratic processes, women, minorities, public education and the working class as he consolidated anti-GOP fervor for a generation.

If Walker thinks the Wisconsin people will now follow his underground movement, he is very mistaken.

But not even Walker believes people will follow, as the GOP continues shouting the fiction of voter fraud meant to appeal to concern over blacks and browns voting. Racist appeals against Milwaukee blacks were legion and largely worked.

Walker knows Wisconsin will not vote Republican in a presidential election unless he can obstruct the vote, and outspend by $10s millions with appeals to hatreds obscuring public policy positions.

So, unconstitutional GOP efforts to obstruct voters at the polls will continue, as will the fight against a racist, statist underground political movement.

Make no mistake about moving forward under Walker's neo-fascist rule.

Resistance remains strong.

A 92-two-old African-American man dressed formally walked up to me working at Fitchburg Fire Station #2 yesterday.

"Good afternoon sir," he said. "I'm here to vote."

"Yes, sir; right this way," I walked.

What is striking about the encounter in the face of Walker is the gravitas of the man's commitment to civic obligation and commitment to democracy; he was at the polling place to vote his preference and no one was going to get in his way.