And now he’s lying about it.
For me, there is only one other thing that is more gut wrenching and loathing to know, other than the mass killing of turkeys this weekend to celebrate Thanksgiving, is knowing that a live turkey not only runs loose, but rules here in my home state of Wisconsin.
I find it loathing and reprehensible how Scott Walker has ruled based on lies and money handed to him by special interest groups so many that my home state of Wisconsin weeps in dismay.
But this morning I found something that makes this chilly November feel brighter and more enjoyable, knowing that his unlawful ruling tactics will not go away and perhaps we will get poetic Justice soon enough when his making of John Doe comes home to roost.
And now he’s lying about it.
by Ian Murphy
I never thought Scott Walker’s people would be dumb enough to put me through. It was February 2011—the height of the Wisconsin governor’s battle with the public unions, with thousands of protesters filling the streets of downtown Madison—when I called his office posing as Tea Party sugar daddy David Koch
Yes, I remember the smoke storm coming out of Scott Walker`s deflection team lying their asses off trying through political talking points to blame Democrats for the genuis work of the infamous editor of The BEAST who pwnd WI Gov. Scott Walker and opened up the can of worms that has followed this turkey ever since.
I told Keith Gilkes, who was then Walker’s chief of staff, that the governor couldn’t return my call because “my goddamn maid, Maria, put my phone in the washer. I’d have her deported, but she works for next to nothing.” (In reality, I was calling with a free Skype number and couldn’t receive calls from a land line at the time.)
Did I mention genuis work by Ian? I could not have even dreamed of using Maria as an excuse against being discovered as a hoax. That Maria "works for next to nothing” must have been the deal breaker, for who else but Walker`s team sought cheap labor and private hirings from the begining?
I had no idea whether Koch and Walker had spoken before, but it was plausible that Koch would call the governor. Americans for Prosperity—the conservative advocacy group Koch founded with his brother Charles—had thrown millions of hard-to-track dollars into pro-Walker advertising and was presently “standing with Walker” via an expensive PR blitz.
I expected Gilkes to question why Koch would personally call the number on their website, suffering through busy signals and endless ringing like a common plebe, and then cavalierly trashing his undocumented maid. “I’m calling from the VOID—with the VOID, or whatever it’s called,” I said, thinking I’d strained credulity too far. “You know, the Snype!” But Gilkes just laughed and told me to call back at 2.
At the appointed hour, Walker and I enjoyed a friendly chat during which I suggested that he physically intimidate his Democratic opposition with a baseball bat, whip up a good counter-protest by dressing hobos in suits and most disturbing: that he ought to plant troublemakers to discredit the pro-union demonstrators.
“[W]e thought about that,” Walker replied, and eventually added, “My only fear would be if there’s a ruckus caused is that would scare the public into thinking maybe the governor has to settle to avoid all these problems.” So it wasn’t morality, but a cynical calculation, that saved the public from that particular ruse.
Yes, and now he lies about it in:
In Unintimidated,
Walker says he took the call “after a week or more of insistent pleas” from his staff. False. Ian called three times in less than three hours.
Walker also writes, “we never—never—considered putting ‘troublemakers’ in the crowd to discredit the protesters.” He now says in his book that he fibbed to appease the co-owner of Koch Industries, parent company to Georgia Pacific Corp., which employs more than 2,000 people in its Green Bay mills. Decent yet disturbing spin. But when the news broke, Walker simply told the local media, “As you’ve heard on the tape, we dismissed that and said that wasn’t a good idea.” It was the same weak talking point he trotted out on Meet the Press. And David Gregory—renowned vanilla sasquatch of the mythological “objective media”—had zero follow-ups, allowing Walker to pivot unchallenged to the “real issue” of the 14 Democratic state senators who’d fled Wisconsin to avoid a GOP quorum.
In fact, it was one of those senators, Tim Carpenter, who’d provided the inspiration for the prank. “He’s just hard-lined—will not talk,” he told Amanda Terkel at the Huffington Post, “will not communicate, will not return phone calls.” Who would Walker talk to, Ian wondered?
His first idea was to pose as Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak, who was in the midst of a mass sit-in of his own. I imagined it as a sort of dictator heart-to-heart. But after three hours of practicing the accent, I still sounded like Borat, not Mubarak, so I gave up and posed as Koch instead.
And as I have said and do not tire of repeating, you can read the whole shebang Ian did on Scott Walker right here. The genuis nature of Ian Murphy`s article is a guarantee to give you hope that good things for Wisconsin loom loud and clear in the horizon. Scott Walker must be held accountable for his crimes against the people of my state of Wisconsin.
This is one turkey that does not deserve clemency by President Obama this Thanksgiving or no other.