Foxconn in Wisconsin Is Unpopular, Destructive and Supported by Gov Scott Walker and Dem Nominee for Gov, Tony Evers

Scott Walker's pro-Foxconn campaign ads are everywhere
in Wisconsin, and face little opposition.

Update: Tony Evers sticks to his make sure [Foxconn is] the best corporate citizen as possible, ... we're going to hold their feet to fire nonsequitur, (Madison.com).
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Madison, Wisconsin — Gov. Scott Walker (R) knows how to put on a show.

That Scott Walker's show is a con is no deterrent for Wisconsin's most accomplished liar since Joe McCarthy.

A political charlatan, Walker apparently thinks he can use the Foxconn boondoggle as a major stepping stone for reelection to turn Wisconsin into a political sewer.

Walker may be correct in this assessment.

The Democratic Party nominee, Tony Evers, decided not to run against Foxconn as Evers offers blather to the Wisconsin people of whom is demanded $Billions to be directed to the Taiwanese bad guy of corporate bad guys.

Even as hard-hitting anti-Foxconn ads blast State Sen. Howard Markleim (R-Spring Green, Wisconsin), in a critical legislative race in southwestern Wisconsin, Tony Evers' Foxconn-related comments range from mush to silence.

For national political observers asking about Wisconsin, the state has not turned red the last eight years.

It's just that the Democratic Party that has turned incompetent, enamored of groupthink as a consultant-based Party, out-of-touch with the people.

The Donald Trump, Paul Ryan and Scott Walker-hailed Foxconn is merely exhibit one for the conclusion Democrats are often kind-of-stupid here.

The prevailing political winds and innovative rights-based, municipal policy that help Democratic-leaning voters aside, Tony Evers may be responsible for blowing a political lay-up in Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin gubernatorial race is a toss-up; it should not be.

“This is exactly what government shouldn’t be doing. We shouldn’t be picking winners and losers. This is anti-capitalistic, it’s anti-free market and it’s a boondoggle of spectacular proportions. Our money is going to a foreign corporation.”https://t.co/gbs9Ljt2i3

— FoxConnCon (@foxconncon) October 18, 2018

Below is an ad from the Greater Wisconsin Committee against the odious State Sen. Howard Markleim (R-Spring Green, Wisconsin).

Such ads should be running statewide, against Scott Walker and every Republican on the ballot.

Democratic Party and progressive pols and writers who think Tony Evers should be offering pabulum on Foxconn are simply, 100-percent, absolutely and incontrovertibly wrong.

Republicans Driven by Fear into Unreason and Hysteria

Barbara With, a citizen activist and public intellectual living in northern Wisconsin, asks: "Is it my PTSD from being in Paris during the attacks or are other people stunned, shocked and sickened by people who reject the idea of helping refugees from violent atrocious war? Something has definitely happened since last Friday to this world. Something that leaves me tremendously sad." (Facebook)

What has happened to the United States since November 13 is a rush towards fascism, abetted by 47 Democratic House members such as Rep. Ron Kind (D-La Crosse, Wisconsin) who voted for the ludicrous American Security Against Foreign Enemies (SAFE) Act of 2015 this week.

In the "United States we are witnessing one of the most morally calamitous reactions to a refugee crisis in the country’s history," writes Sasha Abramsky in The Nation. "There is an odor of early fascism, or rather of the hysteria that precedes the march away from democracy, to much of this Trumpian rhetoric. An odor of the street fight. An odor of the iron fist. It is an acrid smell, a mid-century aroma tinted with totalitarianism and historical ignorance."

None of us should be surprised that the leading Republican Party candidate for the presidency, Donald Trump, is openly calling for suspension of the First and Fourth Amendments, and the targeting of a minority religion.

Other candidates try to out-do each other—as they have all Summer and Autumn—in incessant warnings to be afraid, the other is upon us. Wisconsin is well-represented by Rep. Paul Ryan, Sen. Ron Johnson and its entire Republican congressional delegation steeped in hysteria.

Writes Abramsky, "I see powerful figures such as Trump beating up on helpless refugee children. I see a stampede on the right to exploit a catastrophe, to exploit the war crimes of madmen, for partisan political gain. It is, quite simply, shameful. To block access to America for refugees—in particular refugee children—fleeing the barbarism of the Syrian war is as unsavory as was the turning back of ships filled with desperate Jews in the period leading up to the Second World War."

Sixty-one years ago, facing similar imbecility in Congress led by Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-Wisconsin), journalist Edward R. Murrow famously rebutted, "We will not walk in fear of one another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we dig deep into our own history and our doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes which were for the moment unpopular."

Fear is the essence of the Republican Party today, and The Party requires feeding for its objectives, open fascism. Somehow, Rep. Kind while living in the same state as Scott Walker no less and others missed that boat.

State Journal's Chris Rickert Goes Joe McCarthy

 From the 1894 report of
the U.W. Board of Regents

The Wisconsin State Journal columnist, Chris Rickert has found that the University of Wisconsin-Madison is a fountain of ideas, including those that Rickert finds objectionable.

And Rickert is not happy, writing under today's headline, UW is chummy with lefty groups.

For example, Rickert notes the inception of ALICE as a public policy antidote to ALEC.

For over 150 years, Rickert, Joe McCarthy, and various other know-nothing Wisconsin legislators have had a problem with the UW's ideas.

So, with today's GO-Tea Party gobbling up serious bucks from the pipeline to extremist billionaires, Rickert figures he can get some publicity out of his column, and maybe land a gig and grab some of that rightwing money himself.

Good luck with that; Rickert is a decent-enough stylist.

Sure, the substance of Rickert's column is pathetic, but worth a mention for reasons that are obvious.

As for the UW's history of standing up to the imbecilities in various incarnations over the years, Rickert may wish to give the words from a famous 1894 UW Board of Regents rejoinder a glance:

Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere, we believe that the great State University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found

But readers, we ought not kid ourselves: Ideas and free inquiry are not what Rickert is after. Just publicity and some cash from the Kochs.

Rickert gives UW Professor Joel Rogers' Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS) a hit as well.

I met Rogers several times, and have read many of his books and pieces over the years. Thinking perhaps Gunner Chris has a point: Joel is a small farmer-loving, workers' rights-advocating, public infrastructure-advocating, entrepreneurial-loving lefty with big ideas on stimulating the economy and generating high-wage jobs.

Rogers sounds like a central-planning lefty, likely associating with Jewish, trouble-making, out-of-state types.

Maybe we should bring back HUAC—the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities—and call Rogers to account for spreading his ideas and find out precisely with whom Rogers is holding meetings.

Though in fairness to Rogers, I would note he often seems kind of distracted in coversations.

Texas Tries to Officially Rehabilitate Joe McCarthy in Textbooks

Good enough for Texas. From The Rehabilitation Of Joseph McCarthy? Texas Textbooks Process Grinds On
by Justin Elliott

When we last checked in on the U.S. history textbooks standards setting process down in Texas, the conservative-dominated State Board of Education was mulling one-sided requirements to teach high school students about Newt Gingrich, Phyllis Schlafly, and the Moral Majority.

Now, in the home stretch of a process that will set the state's nationally influential standards, a liberal watchdog group is worried that the State Board of Education will try to push through changes to claim that communist-hunting Sen. Joseph McCarthy has been vindicated by history, among other right-wing pet issues.

Sonia Sotomayor Hearings Today

Update: Civil Rights Groups: 'We are watching;' GOP: We don't care.

As much as the rightwing has tried to bash Sotomayor, "They haven't laid a glove on her," in the words of Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), her leading Senate supporter.

The Brennan Center for Justice has a comprehensive report on Judge Sotomayor’s Record in Constitutional Cases by attorney Monica Youn.

Youn's report builds an irrefutable case on Sotomayor’s outstanding performance as a judge, but facts seldom get in the way of the Republican Nutty Party.

Look for GOP Senators to be respectful in the hearings, and for activists to be true to their rightwing, racist, hate-America roots going back to Nixon, to Sen. Joe McCarthy. [By the way anyone been to that POS's grave site lately up in Appleton?]

Today Is a Good Day for Freedom

Update II: Live feed

Update: MAL's crazy, young nieces are great sports as the hours-long, snaking lines funnel towards the capitol. And a thank you to Rep. Tom Petri's office (R-Fond du Lac) whom my sister reports as the most gracious, welcoming presence that she has encountered during this truly beautiful experience.

Today is a victory for the terrorists. Wait a minute, that's the GOP's SOP McCarthyite lies.

Today, Americans are reinvested with hope that our government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Liberty, privacy, the Bill of Rights: we now have a president who actually believes in these demands and rights of the people.

How strongly Obama acts, and how intently he repudiates through action the ideology of America's worst presidency is the measure of our success for the next four years.

And speaking of demands for liberty, I read that our Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen opposes the proposed police roadblocks that are all the rage: Good for you Van Hollen, don't let the liberty-hating, don't-go-anywhere-without-the-cops-checking-on-you liberals prevent a stand for privacy and freedom that ought to exist when one walks, drives, works or stays home and reads a book.

This is our country, and not Kathleen Falk's personal drama.

Marxists, Marxists Everywhere

When the Republicans get a talking point fed to them, they do recite well.

But today's GOP talking points are so dynamic (and not credible) that even when the current talking point veers into McCarthyism, its life is mere seconds.

From Crooks and Liars, a GOP talking point aimed at a less-than-brilliant segment of the viewership in a market in Florida has "Joe Biden (sitting) down for an interview with Florida television anchor Barbara West (last) Thursday," getting hit "by a barrage of Sean Hannity's talking points."

Interviewer: You may recognize this famous quote: 'From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.' That's from Karl Marx. How is Senator Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?

Biden: Are you joking? Is this a joke?

Interviewer: No

Biden: Is that a real question?

Interviewer: That's a real question.

Before asking 'who the hell is Florida television anchor Barbara West and can she really be that stupid', consider this truism from polls measuring American pulbic opinion:

(The) belief in the basic moral principles of traditional socialism is
surprisingly high: to mention merely one example, almost half the population consider the phrase 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his need' to be such an obvious truth that they attribute it to the U.S. Constitution, a text taken to be akin to Holy Writ.
- Noam Chomsky

I can't find a cite for that often quoted illustration of the political ignorance of the American public, but it's not controversial. [I think I first read it in Right Turn: The Decline of the Democrats and the Future of American Politics (1987)by Thomas Ferguson and Joel Rogers.]

The foolish GOP talking point aside, there does exist quasi-Democratic-socialistic sentiments among the American population. I mean look at the popularity of Social Security and Medicare, and national health care.

And the fact is that the injection of $100s of billions into the high-tech private sector that has been a staple of the American economy for many decades combined with the more naked bailouts likely had more than a few people scratching their heads over the GOP branding Obama as a socialist, Marxist, or whatever.

America has been and is a mixed socialized system; its resources just have not been aimed at the masses so very much.

Truly exciting times we live in, and as Molly Ivins would point out: Great for a laugh, and that goes triple for Florida television anchor Barbara West.

[Note: Shot is of Joe McCarthy's grave in Appleton, Wisconsin and the writer paying his respects.]

Scalia: The New Joe McCarthy

Update: Gitmo Ruling Enters The Election: 'One Of The Worst Decisions' In History

via mal contends - The hysterical dissent by the always colorful Justice Scalia in Boumediene v. Bush/Al Odah v. United States offers a glimpse into the fearful mind of the rightwinger in which can be viewed watery reflections of Senator Joe McCarthy.

[Pictured above-left are Center for Constitutional Rights staff and Co-Counsel, dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.]

Scalia, scolding five of his breathen, offers his dissent from the majority’s decision, including his terrified opinion that, "It (the majority opinion) will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."

Wow. I never knew that habeas corpus, due process, the rule of law, and the separation of powers were such dangerous dynamics to have in a country.

Damn liberals. And that goes double for you, Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton.

We ought to bring back loyalty oaths and raise Joe McCarthy from the dead to expose these Islamo-fascists sympathizers who are going to get us killed.

But today is a day for celebration for liberty as we smile at the fears of Scalia and his ilk who never could stomach the notion that "the Framers viewed freedom from unlawful restraint as a fundamental precept of liberty, (understanding) the writ of habeas corpus as a vital instrument to secure that freedom," or that quaint idea, in Hamilton's formulation, that the "... practice of arbitrary imprisonments, in all ages, is the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny." (Justice Kennedy)

As a commentator on this piece flushes out, those engaging in fearmongering combined with an implicit hostility to civil liberties tend to have as a goal the diminishment of said liberties.

Below-right is our famed Senator McCarthy pictured from the early 1950s, protecting America from the Communists and sympathizers among us (from McCarthyism, The Fight for America, 1952). You know, McCarthy even kind of looks like Scalia.

Vets Hit Financially

Question: Why is the support and righteous indignation directed on behalf of veterans more likely to be offered by those less inclined to send the troops in harm's way?

Answer: Those inclined towards peace tend to have more appreciation and respect for people generally, and are less inclined to use other people, especially troops, as a means toward achieving selfish goals.

Associated Press writers Jeff Donn and Kimberly Hefling have a piece that is worthy of the rapt attention of Rudy Giuliani and the novo chickenhawks about the financial plight of our wounded veterans.

Write Donn and Hefling:

He was one of America's first defenders on Sept. 11, 2001, a Marine who pulled burned bodies from the ruins of the Pentagon. He saw more horrors in Kuwait and Iraq.
Today, he can't keep a job, pay his bills, or chase thoughts of
suicide from his tortured brain. In a few weeks, he may lose his house, too. Gamal Awad, the American son of a Sudanese immigrant, exemplifies an emerging group of war veterans: the economic casualties.

Bush continues to duplicitously borrow for time in his enterprise of making the Iraq War the next president's concern and political problem, and yet still postures and plays the tough man with, as Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold famously described: The "... casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions - or bury the results."

I keep hoping for an Army-McCarthy moment where the demagogues Bush and Company are revealed to be the dangerous cowards and liars that they are, but it's different today when demagoguery is a well-crafted propaganda and public relations enterprise immensely more sophisticated than anything Joe McCarthy could ever dream of.

One hopes that the plight of veterans (and lack of respect given to veterans generally) such as reported by writers Donn and Hefling punches through the propaganda haze, revealing the administration's apathy and even hostility for our soldiers and marines.

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Gonzo on Habeas Corpus Was the Perfect Bushie

That Bush could let an Attorney General express the opinion that the "U.S. Constitution doesn’t expressly recognize habeas corpus" and not fire the person as both an unimpressive lightweight and an ignoramus with no understanding of the liberties enshrined in our Constitution is revealing of Bush's shallow (shallow because the man does not hold deep and nuanced opinions) contempt for classical liberal thought.

Robert Parry has a great piece at Consortiumnews.com.

Writes Parry:

First, (Gonzo's comment) exposed the narrow, ideological thinking that has pervaded the legal analysis of Gonzales and other Bush administration lawyers.

Neoconservative and right-wing legal operatives have long functioned with the notion that if they could conjure up a clever legal argument – no matter how flimsy – that their argument must be accepted as sound or at least treated with the utmost seriousness. If we can devine a rationale, we must be right.

That self-absorbed thinking has been at the core of the legal theories behind George W. Bush’s treatment of profound issues such as presidential power, government secrecy, and limitations on the inalienable rights of individuals who are not in Bush’s inner circle.

... Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution states that “the privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”

Liberty scares the hell out of rightwingers, and yet they repeat their "they hate us for our freedom" braying endlessly.

A reader objecting to the challenge here to Bush's appropriation of extra-constitutional powers in the Jose Padilla case commented:

Interesting. If the U.S. was an actual fascist state or descending into one, you wouldn't be able to say things like that without getting arrested or worse.

What escapes rightwingers is the fact that authoritarian and fascist states do not inflict their power on all citizens uniformly. Discrete minorities (like disaffected Muslims here) suffer disproportionally at the hands of the state.

If Bush were to go after the elites (like McCarthy and Nixon did) or after someone protected by a political culture of openness and civil liberties (like a news blogger in Wisconsin), the political reaction would be devastating to the administration.

That's why writers are able to say things without getting arrested or worse.

Liberty has a prominent placement in the Constitution.

But I wonder if Bush has ever read the document, despite his canned judges-ought-to-interpret-and-not-make-law sound bites.

Warning of the emergence of a new authoritarianism in the early 1980s, Prof. Richard Epstein writes in the preface to Prof. Macedo's The New Right v. the Constitution, "... partisans of the New Right advocate ... a fundamental narrowing of judicial protections of individual rights. ... But the New Right's claim to the Founders' legacy is dubious, its allegiance to the Constitution largely rhetorical, and its stature in relation to the great tradition of American constitutional thought unimpressive."

Epstein and Macedo's work applies well today to Bush and his Constitutional lightweights.

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