Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Koch call part 2- Outside agitators dreamin' of Cali

Alright, we established in Part 1 of the greatness of the Walker/ Koch phone call that Scott Walker was a legend in his own mind who thought he could trick the runaway 14 Senators into returning within a few days, and make up layoff notices to "ratchet up" the pressure on the Dems. Both of which turned out to be major miscalculations that ended up laughably wrong. We also know that he asked the fake David Koch to coordinate ads in favor of Walker and the Legislative GOP, despite the fact that such coordination is supposed to be illegal. Of course, we had a pretty good idea Walker was having his strings pulled back then, and it's even more clear now.

Now in part 2, let's start by taking a look at the most notorious part of the Walker/ Koch call. As before, my comments will be in italics, and outside the block quotes.
Murphy/ Koch: Right, right. Well, we’ll back you any way we can. But, uh, what we were thinking about the crowds was, uh, was planting some troublemakers.

Walker: You know, the, well, the only problem with that — because we thought about that. Much like with the John Doe "We can't have this happen again" email, Walker's problem with this concept isn't that such a thing is unacceptably wrong, but that it just isn't politically acceptable to him and his crew. The problem — the, my only gut reaction to that is right now the lawmakers I’ve talked to have just completely had it with them, the public is not really fond of this. Actually, polls indicated that people supported the protestors more than the Kochs and the corporates, and greatly supported keeping collective bargaining rights. The teachers union did some polling of focus groups, I think, and found out that the public turned on ’em the minute they closed school down for a couple days. Only in Sykes World, not the real one. The guys we’ve got left are largely from out of state, and I keep dismissing it in all my press conferences saying, ‘Eh, they’re mostly from out of state (still delusional about who the protestors are) .’My only fear would be is if there was a ruckus caused is that that would scare the public into thinking maybe the governor has gotta settle to avoid all these problems. You know, whereas, I’ve said,‘Hey, you know, we can handle this, people can protest. This is Madison, you know, full of the ’60s liberals. Let ’em protest.’ It’s not gonna affect us. And as long as we go back to our homes and the majority of the people are telling us we’re doing the right thing, let ’em protest all they want. This goes along with Walker's disproven comment that the Kloppenburg/ Prosser race was "one world defined by Madison and one is the rest of the state," which was proven a lie once you broke the voting numbers. And it wasn't just Madtown, as Walker found out when 2,000 protestors greeted him in tiny Washburn, Wisconsin 3 weeks later.

And now....the grand finale. Hilariously, Murphy is trying to get off the phone, but Walker won't stop talking to "Koch"!
Murphy: Well, good, good. Good catching up with ya’.

Walker: Yeah, well, thanks. This is an exciting time. This is — you know, I told my cabinet, I had a dinner the Sunday, or excuse me, the Monday right after the 6th. Came home from the Super Bowl where the Packers won, (using taxpayer dollars for his security on the trip,) and that Monday night I had all of my cabinet over to the residence for dinner. Talked about what we were gonna do, how we were gonna do it. We’d already kinda built plans up, and had already hooked up Ray Taffora at Michael, Best and Friedrich with a 6-figure no-bid contract for the legal challenges that were coming but it was kind of the last hurrah before we dropped the bomb. And I stood up and I pulled out a picture of Ronald Reagan, and I said, you know, this may seem a little melodramatic, but 30 years ago, Ronald Reagan, whose 100th birthday we just celebrated the day before, had one of the most defining moments of his political career, not just his presidency, when he fired the air-traffic controllers. And American wages have stagnated while inequality has skyrocketed since then, just as Walker/ Koch like it. And, uh, I said, to me that moment was more important than just for labor relations or even the federal budget, that was the first crack in the Berlin Wall and the fall of Communism because from that point forward, the Soviets and the Communists knew that Ronald Reagan wasn’t a pushover. Obviously Walker didn't take much modern U.S. history before he was thrown out of Marquette, because I sure didn't know Solidarity in Poland fought the Soviets because they wanted the freedom to have their unions busted like Reagan would do in America. And, uh, I said this may not have as broad of world implications, but in Wisconsin’s history — little did I know how big it would be nationally — in Wisconsin’s history, I said this is our moment, this is our time to change the course of history. Oh you've done that, Scotty. We went from adding 4,000 jobs a month in 2010 to being Number 1 in job loss the last 6 months. And this is why it’s so important that they were all there. I had a cabinet meeting this morning and I reminded them of that and I said for those of you who thought I was being melodramatic you now know it was purely putting it in the right context.

Murphy: [Laughs] Well, I tell you what, Scott: once you crush these bastards I’ll fly you out to Cali and really show you a good time. Or Aspen, as the Kochs did for Walker in Summer 2011 for a "dark money" event away from media

Walker: All right, that would be outstanding. Thanks, thanks for all the support (and propaganda pieces, and numerous lying ads to keep my sorry ass afloat) and helping us move the cause of anti-democratic oligarchy forward, and we appreciate it. We’re, uh, we’re doing the just and right thing for the right reasons, cause we both get a huge payoff from it at everyone else's expense and it’s all about getting our freedoms back to control the lives of those menial plebes and keep them in their place.

Murphy: Absolutely. And, you know, we have a little bit of a vested interest as well. As in no-bid sales of power plants to the Kochs, which was in the bill at the time? [Laughs]

Walker: Well, that’s just it. I know what you gave to our campaign, and what you can do for it in the future The bottom line is we’re gonna get the world moving here because it’s the right thing to do.

Murphy: All right then.

Walker: Thanks a million! Or 2, or 3, or 10...
Yes indeed, thanks a million Scott. For showing us all once and for all who was really in charge of this state, and who you were willing to drop everything and take 10 minutes to talk to. And it sure wasn't us.

I think people need to see quite a bit more of this phone call, don't you? C'mon Dems, bring it full-scale to the people! It makes even more sense now than it did then, and given that Walker corruption is starting to pass destruction of worker rights as the Number 1 reason this recall is necessary, I think this is a great example of how the 2 are tied together. Because it is.

See, we understood immediately when Walker "dropped the bomb" that destroying collective bargaining was never about the budget, and later actions proved we were right (and the media at the time was way wrong). In fact, the extra health and pension payments for state employees were cynically delayed until after the Summer recall elections- so much for a "budget crisis" that required immediate action. And the administrator Walker put in charge of the changes? None other than Walkergate figure Cynthia Archer! Fun how those things have come around, haven't they?

No, it was always about trying to diminish what Koch called the "union power," which is one of the few groups that stood in the way of oligarchs like Koch from grabbing complete control of our government and economy in early 2011. Instead, going after the unions is going to be the event that awakened millions of others to the jig, and now the Kochs jig is up, and we're never going to allow them to take it all. In fact, Walker looks even more foolish and corrupt than he did one year ago today, when he heard "David Koch is on line 1," and TOOK THE CALL.

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