Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin Answering to His "Boss"

Naive people would think that the governor of Wisconsin was "hired" by the electors of Wisconsin, but in reality Walker knows who his real boss is, big money right wing crazies like the Koch brothers. Here's a taped phone call of a guy pretending to be David Kock and getting a "status report" from "employee" Scott Walker. This phone call makes it clear that Walker works for big rich people, not for the people of Wisconsin:

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Here's an article in Salon magazine which describes the prank and how it got Gov. Scott Walker to spill his guts:

Ian Murphy, editor of the Buffalo Beast, just did something wonderful. Murphy, pretending to be billionaire industrialist and secretive conservative political activist David Koch, called Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, currently in the midst of attempting to crush the public employees' unions. "Koch" got through to Walker (who hasn't been taking calls from the Democratic state Senate minority leader). He taped the call and put it online.

So Walker will happily take a call from a Koch brother. He says that he considered "planting some troublemakers" among the protesters. He is convinced that everyone is on his side. Like most people who only watch Fox, he has a skewed impression of the popularity of his union-crushing proposals. (His plan is, nationally, roundly unpopular. Except on Fox.)

When "Koch" calls Mika Brzezinski "a real piece of ass," Walker does not respond by saying something awful, which is a bit of a disappointment.

Walker does reveal that he is planning to trick the Democrats into coming back into town for a "talk," despite his lack of interest in compromising anything. He will ask them to open a session in the Assembly, and then take a recess for this talk. At that point, the Senate Republicans would hold the vote on the bill while Walker distracts them Democrats with this entirely pointless discussion:

They can recess it... the reason for that, we're verifying it this afternoon, legally, we believe, once they’ve gone into session, they don’t physically have to be there. If they’re actually in session for that day, and they take a recess, the 19 Senate Republicans could then go into action and they’d have quorum because it's turned out that way. So we’re double checking that.If you heard I was going to talk to them that’s the only reason why. We’d only do it if they came back to the capitol with all 14 of them. My sense is, hell. I'll talk. If they want to yell at me for an hour, I'm used to that. I can deal with that. But I'm not negotiating.

Walker also thinks that Reagan crushing the air-traffic controllers' union was "the first crack in the Berlin wall," because he's been stewing in the propaganda of conservative mythology for years.

And finally:

Koch: [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.

Walker: All right, that would be outstanding.

So! A Koch brother can call up a nationally prominent Republican elected official and get an audience whenever he likes, basically. That is not particularly surprising, I guess.

There is more about this prank at Mother Jones magazine.

What makes me want to throw up is that Walker loves to play the "these union guys got a better deal than you, so let's bring them down a notch" jealousy while at the same time not pointing out that his big tax cuts for the ultra-rich and corporations are where the real money is at. Working class and middle class people shouldn't be jealous of the other guy who has a dollar more an hour than they have, they should be hopping mad at the billionaires and millionaires that can pocket a tax cut of several hundred thousand dollars that Walker is giving the fat cats. The whole thing is so sleazy. I can't believe that people don't rise up in rebellion and burn the state house down, tar and feather Scott Walker, and then run him out of the state. He is a complete sleaze.

Americans need to rise up and take back their government. Their governors, senators, and representatives should not be working -- and reporting to!!! -- rich right wing nuts. They need to be working for and reporting to the American people.