Wisconsin Radical Right Wing Rogue Republicans!

By Jeff Simpson

By now, anyone who follows Wisconsin politics at all knows that Assembly Leader(term used loosely), Robin Vos (R-Adulterer) called three of his fellow Republicans(Steve nASS, Duey Stroebel and Chris Kapenga) - terrorists:

State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos is still angry with last month's rocky resolution to the state budget debate, calling three Republican senators who struck a deal with Gov. Scott Walker to support the budget "terrorists."
"That's what they are," Vos said in a WISN-TV interview that aired Sunday morning. "You don't hold somebody hostage for your own personal needs."
Vos also said the budget might not have passed had the last-minute deal, which called for Walker to use his line-item veto authority to strip out parts of the budget, been public before lawmakers voted on it.
"Only three people made a backroom deal to be able to have something that could not be announced before the budget was enacted," Vos said. "Maybe the budget would've failed if we'd known some of those aspects were going to be vetoed, but we never had the chance to know."
Vos was addressing Sens. Chris Kapenga, Steve Nass and Duey Stroebel, three hard-line conservative GOP senators who withheld support for the budget until hours before the state Senate passed it last month. The two-year state budget was passed more than 10 weeks after the deadline, the longest such delay in a decade.

It is nice that all of the time Robin has been in Government, he finally speaks the truth but what he really meant to say was  - he was against illegal, secretive backroom deals that he was not involved in.   Vos complaining about transparency in government is like The Donald complaining about the poor treatment of women! 

As expected, the GOP turned into precious snowflakes who could not handle any criticism.  First Wiggy, in a cowardly unsigned post at Right Wisconsin really let Vos have it. 

It appeared to be premeditated slander. Vos repeated the charge of terrorism when challenged and had a ready (if outrageous) defense of it.
These three senators, Chris Kapenga of Delafield, Duey Stroebel of Saukville and Steve Nass of Whitewater, are all former members of the state Assembly, all former colleagues of Vos. Far from being a “terrorist,” Nass served in the Wisconsin Air National Guard for 33 years. Kapenga and Stroebel are businessmen and leaders in their communities. All three deserve more respect from Vos than being called terrorists.

 Premeditated slander is some serious stuff, no wonder Jimmy did not sign his name!   The problem of course is it is not slander when its a public official.    But I digress.... 

Apparently, WIggy thinks if you serve in the military you can not be a terrorist!  He never was one for research.

But Wait there is more:

Duey is hopping mad:

Brave men and women in uniform combat terrorists everyday. Terrorists use violence in an effort to destroy our American way-of-life.  To imply fellow Republican legislators are terrorists is the type of hyperbolic rhetoric Wisconsinites are tired of hearing. Wisconsinites expect more of their leaders than to make these kind of personal attacks.

Steve nASS was also upset, and wanted to let everyone know he was in the National Guard:

The senators didn't take kindly to the comments. One of them — Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) — noted that he had served in the Wisconsin Air National Guard.
"It is beyond outrageous for anyone, especially a person serving as speaker of the Wisconsin state Assembly, to label as a ‘terrorist’ another person for simple public policy disagreements," Nass said in a statement. "Worse yet, when given the opportunity in the interview to retract or recalibrate such a reprehensible statement, Speaker Vos firmly reiterated it."

Then the kicker came out....sit down for this one.  Scott Walker (well one of his spokesmen, he was too busy letting African American Athletes know how they should protest to be bothered with Vos) had to weigh in.

I have not heard this kind of outrage from the WISGOP since the last time someone compared a bunch of teachers, police, firemen, public servants, men woman and children Wisconsinites to ISIS: 

 O wait.....nevermind there was no outrage (or apology) then.   Hmmmmm curious!   

PS:  After The Koch Bros Org - AFP demanded an apology, and Scott Fitzgerald put his "leadership" counter part over his knee and spanked him - Robin Vos finally apologized (NO, not for breaking up his marriage, or breaking up Michelle Litjens marriage, or helping shield predator Bill Kramer from punishment, or for illegally and unethically spending millions to gerrymander our state or the attacks on education in Wisconsin, or the attacks on free speech, or... you get the idea) for calling the far right loons in the state terrorists.   

MADISON - The leader of the state Assembly apologized Monday for calling fellow Republican senators "terrorists" after they held up the state budget with veto demands. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) issued the apology after a chorus of criticism from other GOP leaders, but his statement continued to refer to the conservative senators as "rogue holdouts."

Scott Walker's Bogus Bravado

By now, the gentle reader is fully aware that Scott Walker really put his foot in his mouth this time with a grandiose statement of bravado while speaking at this years CPAC convention (Motto: The black hole of IQs):

“I want a commander in chief who will do everything in their power to ensure that the threat from radical Islamic terrorists does not wash up on American soil,” said Walker, a likely 2016 presidential candidate. “If I can take on 100,000 protesters, I can do the same across the world.”

Yeah, okay. Just call me caliph capper.

Walker's show of faux machismo was met with instant criticism:

“To compare the hundreds of thousands of teachers, students, grandmothers, veterans, correctional officers, nurses and all the workers who came out to peacefully protest and stand together for their rights as Americans to ISIS terrorists is disgusting and unacceptable,” Phil Neuenfeldt, president of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, said in a statement. “Coming together to peacefully protest for freedom, to raise your voice for a better Wisconsin, this is not an act of terror.”

[...]

Marquette Law School political science professor Charles Franklin said Walker “may have crossed the line” by linking international affairs and union protests. “But it’s not a brand new thing for him to connect toughness in Act 10 and toughness in international affairs.”

Even the right wing National Review Online didn't let Walker off the hook:

That is a terrible response. First, taking on a bunch of protesters is not comparably difficult to taking on a Caliphate with sympathizers and terrorists around the globe, and saying so suggests Walker doesn’t quite understand the complexity of the challenge from ISIS and its allied groups.

Secondly, it is insulting to the protesters, a group I take no pleasure in defending. The protesters in Wisconsin, so furiously angry over Walker’s reforms and disruptive to the procedures of passing laws, earned plenty of legitimate criticism. But they’re not ISIS. They’re not beheading innocent people. They’re Americans, and as much as we may find their ideas, worldview, and perspective spectacularly wrongheaded, they don’t deserve to be compared to murderous terrorists.

The best line came from the DNC:

"If Scott Walker thinks that it's appropriate to compare working people speaking up for their rights to brutal terrorists, then he is even less qualified to be president than I thought. Maybe he should go back to punting," DNC communications director Mo Elleithee said.

And punt is exactly did when Walker realized he made a major blunder and tried to backpedal from his statement by blaming it on the media:

Walker immediately sought to clarify his comments as he shuttled between media interviews after the speech. His political nonprofit group also issued a statement.

“Let me be perfectly clear: I’m just pointing out the closest thing I have to handling this difficult situation is the 100,000 protesters I had to deal with,” Walker told reporters. Asked if he regretted the statement, he said, “No.”

“You all will misconstrue things the way you see fit,” he said. “That’s the closest thing I have in terms of handling a difficult situation, not that there’s any parallel between the two.”

Make no mistake in thinking that this was a gaffe by Walker. If there is one thing he does well, it is blowing the dog whistle. The only mistake he might have made was underestimating the level of blow back he would receive.  Even his staunchest supporters are eventually going to pull back if he keeps making one inane statement after another.

But take a moment to think about Walker said.

This is what he says prepared him to take on savage terrorists with missiles, machine guns and a blood thirst:

Walker's other claims to heroism turn out to be just fabrications of his warped mind.

As the gentle reader can see, his claims of the threats he faced were so exaggerated as to being to the point of ridiculous.  But not only were the supposed threats exaggerated, he also conflated his level of success against them.

As this past week showed with thousands of people converging on the Capitol, he did not do away with the unions.

And those savage Solidarity Singers?  They all had their civil and constitutional rights protected by a court of law and are still singing there every day.

In summary, Walker's idea of terrorists are Americans exercising their constitutional rights, people singing and figments of his imagination.  Even worse, he has proven himself to be ineffective against such grave threats.

What again is he going to do when confronted with armed terrorist who are not afraid of killing or being killed?  I mean, besides wetting himself and running away, screaming like a little kid.

Paul & the Terrorists!

Cross Posted @The Paul Ryan Watch:

 Paul Ryan spoke recently at the 'Values Voters Summit" where he held top billing with a Self Proclaimed former terrorist Kamal Saleem.

Just to be clear, on the day that the bodies of our four brave Americans who were killed in service to our country, were being brought home, Paul Ryan shared a speaking engagement with a former terrorist who claims to be a friend to Arafat, Qaddafi & Saddam Hussein. 

The "values voters', value a former terrorist and Paul Ryan equally enough to share a stage.

Does that say more about the "values voters" or more about Paul Ryan?

Rachel Maddow breaks it down very well right here:

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