For generations, the corporate-controlled right wing has been trying to demonize labor unions in order to be able to implement their agenda of plantation economics.
To continue that maleficent mission, Cashin' In started bashing the people who protested outside of Scott Walker's house last week. The people (and I use that term loosely) that partook in the union bashing were Eric Bolling, the host; Monica Crowley; Jonathan Hoenig; Lisa Boothe, Senior Director of the Black Rock Group; and Juan Williams (who almost mounted a defense of the unions).
Part of their diatribe follows:
BOLLING: Big labor sending a big bold message this week. If you're angry at a politician's policy, take it out on their elderly parents. Yep, pro-union protesters swarming Scott Walker's mom and dad's house. They obviously don't like the Wisconsin governor who just happens to be a GOP presidential frontrunner.
But Juan, your union thug buddies tormenting Walker's parents. Come on!
WILLIAMS: Well first of all, they're not my union thug buddies, but secondly, I don't think they knew that was the house of his parents. They thought that was Scott Walker, the governor's house and certainly they have a right to protest in front of the governor's mansion or home and there's no law against it. I would say though to Megyn Kelly's point...
BOLLING: How do you know what they thought?
WILLIAMS: No, that's what they said. I don't think...
CROWLEY: Oh, that's what they said. Well now, look, this is what the left does and frankly, they do it really well because they've been perfecting this for decades. They send out their shock troops, union folks, the kids. They did it with Occupy Wall Street. They did it again to Scott Walker three times in the last four years and now they're starting it again. Look, what they ended up doing, much to their probable chagrin is turning Scott Walker into a sympathetic figure. They protest his parents who are in their seventies for goodness sake and now Scott Walker comes out looking like a rose.
BOLLING: In fact, let's listen to Megyn Kelly asking him about that incident. Listen to how he responds. It's pretty cool. Watch.
(Begin video)
WALKER: I think my dad said this morning when I talked to him that he turned his hearing aid down a little bit. My mom, my mom is so wonderful she was actually half tempted to send them some chocolate chip cookies outside ‘cause she sends those to our neighbors all the time.
(End video)
BOLLING: He turned that into a win, didn't he?
BOOTHE: He absolutely did and that's what Scott Walker is so good at doing. But look, these are the same union thugs that threatened to gut Scott Walker's wife like a deer and now they're attacking his elderly parents. And you know, Scott Walker's been public enemy number one since his union reform bill, but guess who's winning? It's the tax payers and Scott Walker, because not only did he save tax payers $3 billion but Scott Walker has been reelected three times in the past four years.
WILLIAMS: Yeah, why don't you just close down the university and what's all this talk about attacking and gutting? They had a demonstration. You guys are so pro-Walker it's crazy. (crosstalk)
HOENIG: Eric, can you imagine if a CEO did this, you know, went and protested outside of, you know, workers' parents' house, grand parents' house? The unions are like the Atillas of today. They really deal in brute force, not persuasion and of course a CEO would never do that because they do deal in persuasion. They try to persuade people to act in their interests, not intimidate them, physically intimidate them into coercing what they think is right.
WILLIAMS: You must have missed some history lessons about how Americans, American business has handled labor and sent thugs to beat up unions and to try and stop unionizing.
BOOTHE: Juan, I don't think...
HOENIG: … their grandparents' home.
BOOTHE: I don't think threatening to gut someone like a deer is peaceful protesting, do you?
WILLIAMS: Oh my God! What attacks? There was no attack, no physical confrontation and again, they didn't know that that was Walker's parents' house.
BOLLING: We don't have time, but Juan, do you think it's okay to go to Scott Walker's parents' home and protest? The poor guy had to turn down his hearing aid?
WILLIAMS: I didn't say that. They didn't know and Scott Walker's brother said he had to tell them...
HOENIG: Well they should have known!
WILLIAMS: … that's not Scott Walker's house.
BOLLING: They didn't know. Come on. Give me a break.
The right wing nut jobs' first problem is that the protesters were indeed at the right house as Lisa Kaiser of the Shepherd Express explains:
He’s got a home in Wauwatosa, which he bought when he was Milwaukee County executive. A quick check of his voting records shows that’s his voting address, too. His wife, Tonette, still works at the American Lung Association, located in Brookfield. His official calendar certainly features a slew of “overnight at Tosa residence” items and he uses the state plane to fly between Madison and Milwaukee all the time. And don’t forget that Wisconsin taxpayers foot the bill for security there as well. Last year, the Journal Sentinel found that $978,000 in taxpayer funds went to providing security at the Wauwatosa home. The DOA hasn’t returned my call to find out what’s going on with security there now.
I only bring this up because of a protest outside of Walker’s home on Monday night by those concerned about his massive cuts to education.
Kaiser follows the trail of putrid bread crumbs back to tweets issued by Walker's son, intentionally misidentifying the home as being his grandparents. The right wing squawking heads ran with this lie and Walker did nothing to correct them.
As with all things Walker, there is more to the story that Walker and his apologists really don't want you to know.
One such item is that Walker has been known to lie about the protesters in order to garner support from the gullible who are more than willing to believe anything bad about unions:
Walker says protesters in La Crosse blocked an exit and surrounded a State Patrol car carrying the governor and were "beating on the windows and rocking the vehicle." When the car was "extricated" from the crowd, a truck blocked a second exit.
Yet we could find no mention of the car rocking incident before the book came out Nov. 19, 2013.
Beyond the book itself and related public statements, there was no concrete evidence provided by Walker’s office, despite numerous inquiries by PolitiFact.
Local police, journalists at the scene, and people from the company and the crowd do not recall seeing Walker’s car rocked or banged upon. And no one involved in news coverage, local law enforcement or witnesses reported seeing a truck blocking the car from leaving.
Finally, in a recent interview, Walker toned down his description of the incident.
Based on the available information, we think the book’s depiction of what happened -- an organized effort to prevent Walker from leaving that placed him in direct danger -- is False.
Going along with Walker's pathological lying is the fact that he readily admitted, in a prank call from whom he thought was David Koch, to giving consideration to putting plants among the protesters to act the fools and make the rest of the protesters look bad:
KOCH: Right, right. We’ll back you anyway we can. But uh, what we’re thinking about the
crowds was, a, was planting some troublemakers.WALKER: You know, the well [sighs] the only problem with – because we thought about that. The problem with, my only gut reaction to that would be right now the, the lawmakers I’ve talked to have just completely had it with them. The public is not really fond of this, uh the teacher’s union did some polling of some focus groups I think and found out the public turned on them the minute they closed school down for a couple of days. The guys we got left are largely from out of state and I keep dismissing it in all my press conferences and saying uhh, they’re mostly from out of state. My only fear would be is if there was a ruckus caused, is that that would scare the public into thinking that maybe the governor has got to settle to avoid all these problems. Where as I’ve said, hey, ya know, we can handle this, people can protest, this is Madison, ya know, full of the 60s liberals, let ‘em protest. It’s not going to affect us and as long as we go back to our homes and the majority of people are telling us we’re doing the right thing, theall they want. So, that’s my gut reaction, is I think it’s actually good if they’re constant, they’re noisy, but they’re quiet, nothing happens, cause sooner or later the media stops finding them interesting.
So we have Walker and his apologists blatantly fabricating lies and conflating events to dehumanize and demonize the unions and their supporters. And if they can't find anything to lie about, they will just make it up out of broadcloth.
As Kaiser points out in her column, these are the extremes that these extremists will go in order to avoid talking about the actual issues, like the complete and utter failure which is Scott Walker.