Actually, Walker’s election itself isn’t the most frightening part. It’s the accompanying Republican takeover of both the Assembly and the state Senate that raises the threat level to terrifying.
What that means is there will be absolutely no check on anything Walker, a right-wing extremist with a deceptively pleasant personality, wants to do.
Just as scary, Walker will provide no protection at all from the worst legislation the most extreme Republicans can churn out.
Such a perfect storm of political extremism is historically unprecedented in Wisconsin.
Even when Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson had control of both houses of the Legislature for a time in the 1990s, Thompson was a practical enough politician that he provided a check on his own party’s worst tendencies.
Thompson was the one who prevented legislative Republicans from ending one of Wisconsin’s greatest historical accomplishments—its 157-year ban on capital punishment.
Thompson opposed the death penalty on both moral grounds (as a sincere, pro-life Catholic opposed to both abortion and murdering fully grown human beings) and for economic reasons (the exorbitant cost of setting up the machinery of death and hearing years of appeals).
Ironically, Walker, who claimed to be pro-life while pandering to the most extreme anti-abortion voters, would gladly pour millions of taxpayer dollars down the murderous rathole of restoring capital punishment.
So far, at least, the courts still will prohibit Walker from enacting the most extreme steps to outlaw a woman’s right to choose whether to give birth to a child. He opposes abortion even in cases of rape, incest and to save the life of the mother (a contradictory position for anyone claiming to be pro-life).
But nothing can prevent Walker and other extremists from creating as many obstacles as possible to interfere with health care decisions between a woman and her doctor.
Walker and other extreme Republicans also are eager to strangle in its crib the pioneering embryonic stem cell research that was virtually invented at UW-Madison.
Tommy Thompson not only fended off attempts by his own state party to destroy the landmark medical research that promises to save millions of lives, but he even got an exception for UW-Madison written into President George W. Bush’s anti-stem-cell-research policies.
Not very long from now, James Thomson, director of UW-Madison stem cell research, will win the Nobel Prize for his discovery of the almost unlimited potential for using embryonic stem cells to cure diseases and repair the human body.
Unfortunately, by then, Walker and Republican legislators may well have driven Thomson and the entire high-tech, stem cell research industry with its boom in high-paying, highly skilled jobs out of Wisconsin.
The Hits Keep on Coming
On the subject of pro-life poseurs hypocritically
promoting anti-life policies, it is now a given Walker and the Legislature will flood city
streets with guns, concealed or openly carried by the armloads.
Don’t worry, either, about any of those namby-pamby
restrictions to prevent people from carrying guns into schools, churches, day
care centers or crowded stadiums and festivals. Let the free fire begin.
And just to assure their most appalling policies
reign throughout the state for a long, long time, Republicans immediately will
pass voting restrictions, including a requirement that only people with photo
IDs can vote.
Coincidentally, most people who don’t have a photo
ID with a current address are poor people, African Americans, Latinos, students
and the elderly, those most likely to vote Democratic.
Look for elimination of Election Day registration as
well. The increased voter turnout among underrepresented groups in recent years
is a direct threat to political control by the people who have always run
everything.
They don’t like riffraff being allowed to vote so
freely in a democracy.
This is just the beginning of the mean-spirited
proposals that will sweep through the Legislature unchecked. Any offensive,
undemocratic idea you have ever heard uttered by a right-wing extremist is now
well on its way to becoming state law.
Republicans will be limited only by the meanness of
their imaginations. They’ll warm up by gutting public education and health
care.
You’ll notice nothing has been mentioned yet about
creating any jobs, which presumably was the driving force behind so many voters
tossing out the Democrats.
That’s because Republicans actually are opposed to
government doing anything to create jobs. In fact, one of Walker’s
first official acts will be to try to shut down a national high-speed rail
system in Wisconsin
that would create nearly 5,000 jobs over the next two years.
Enjoy the absence of poisonous smoke in restaurants
and bars while you still can.
*/?>
Damn, you leftist crybabies are cracking me up already! Thanks for the comical relief.
nobodies crying, and we're not done fighting, better believe that
Corrina, your kind of people are more dangerous to America than Joel's left-wing ways. Whereas liberals are more about "Live and Let Live" and will allow even you to have your say, right-wing conservatives are more about "Our way is the only way" and will patently deny others the opportunity to express their opinions.
Both the center and the left invite a give and take debate, are more likely to turn the other cheek (like real Christians also were taught). But the right has no problem with breaking out their guns and controlling others, all the while calling themselves Christians. Which one of those attitudes is going to be the most harmful?
The few with the money also want to control all the rest of us, they are patiently waiting for you to hand the right, the center, and the left over to the rich. An undemocratic, unrepublican minority rule.
@WaukeshaGuy- hey nut-job- who is censoring your speech? Who is pulling out a gun and supressing you? Who said anything about Christians? You are a bigot- prejudiced against Christians, at least. You throw out platitudes without any facts at all- not even anecdotal support. The left is the side of the "fairness doctrine," which would determine exactly what can or cannot be broadcast on our airwaves. The left is the party of MSNBC, a network that puts its talk-show hosts (opinion people- Maddow, Matthews and Olbermann) on election-coverage duty. The left is the party of screaming racism if anyone disagrees with Obama, while claiming that black conservatives are "house negros" or "Uncle Toms". These things all happened- I ask again, who pulled a gun on you and told you not to express your opinion?
Pyg, you whiny little punk, how dare you call Waukesha a bigot. There was absolutely nothing bigoted about his post, at all. So long as Fox Noise exists, no Republican or Conservative will ever have a leg to stand on in the grand debate of political media. Why don't you just admit that you're scared of The Fairness Doctrine because it would eliminate the fear mongering advantage of the Right. It would mean our national political discourse would no longer be hijacked by Conservative extremists and the Religious Right.
The Left cries "racism" when Rand Paul defends segregated lunch counters; cause that's RACISM! No one cries "racism" simply because someone disagrees with Obame; get your head out of your rear.
@meepos- You did not rebut one single point I made. How are talk shows that are popular enough to be financially viable a "hijacking" of the airwaves? The left is free to put out the same type of shows, and has tried to, repeatedly. These shows just fail miserably because of the logic-free, hysterical, angry discourse used by the likes of Stuart Smalley (Al Franken). WaukeshaGuy needs to defend himself- he throws out hypothetical scenarios as if they were fact- no one is breaking out a gun and controlling others, no one is suppressing his right to put forth his opinion (duh, take a look at this website and the fact that he freely comments on it), and where the heck does Christianity come into it? Let the Guy defend his own blather, or at least make a better argument yourself if you're going to be his intellectual bodyguard. By the way, you know darn well that Rand Paul didn't defend segregated lunch counters- he defended property rights and the right of the citizenry to put a segregated establishment out of business by NOT patronizing it.
Pyg, I'm sure you've made many excuses in your life to defend and cover your racist guilt, but don't try to pass that off on me; I ain't buyin' it. And I rebutted three of your claims. Comment on those instead of back peddling your way out of them. Another thing, you've jumped into plenty my post with others, so you're posts are fair game to me. I wasn't defending anyone, I was attacking you.
"back peddling", "plenty my post", and "you're posts" says the grammar/spelling cop meepos. very impressive. that's like grade school spelling and syntax you hypocritical fraud
...... "your kind of people are more dangerous to America than Joel's left-wing ways. Whereas liberals are more about "Live and Let Live" and will allow even you to have your say...." That's a VERY ODD way to express your support for free speech!
Geez, I guess the right doesn't have a monopoly on "fear mongering" after all. I think the Taking Liberties shark has been jumped. Joel's becoming a parody of himself.
That comment pretty much covers it. He just goes down the liberal line checklist of now-minority policies and complains that because he's too afraid of the world to fix anything, government should do it all for him. Sorry Joel, your socialist ideas voted out the dore and complaints about meaness are old stale news. You'll be drinking tea for a while.
crybabies? whos been bitchin and moanin the last 2 years about Obama and "too much government"?????
It was a warning you should have paid attention to. Note that Wisconsin is not normally a strong conservative state, yet look what all those independants decided to do. G-Bye Dems.
Looking forward to Walker changing this state and following what the people want!! Let's go Scott!!
And when the incompetent Walker & the GOPers fail to do anything about the economy in 2 yrs, the independents will switch again in 2012, & put Obama in for another term & restore the Democrat party back to power.
You may not have heard much about what the Tea Party actually accomplished. Obama-ness is over. Read "The Contract from America" that 64 election winners had signed.
Joel you are 100% right. Get ready for some good old Rebublican meaness to uncork some whoop ass on the liberal extremist.
Barrett will be grateful when Walker give the electric chair to the punks that robbed Barrett's son.