Scott Walker Ramps Up The Extremism

By Kenneth Quinnell — April 7, 2012

In advance of his upcoming recall election and possible legal trouble, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has become even more extreme, ramping up the rhetoric and taking actions that are troubling, to say the least. Most importantly, he signed a repeal of the state's Equal Pay Enforcement Act:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who is facing a recall election, quietly repealed a state law making it easier for pay discrimination victims to seek justice. Amanda Terkel reports in The Huffington Post that Walker signed into law a bill passed in party-line votes by Republicans in the state legislature that rolls back the 2009 Equal Pay Enforcement Act. The act had allowed workers to challenge pay discrimination in state rather than just federal courts.

The act was only one part of Walker's assault on women:

Among them were four highly controversial measures focused on women's health care and sexual education:
A repeal of the state's Equal Pay law, which allowed victim's of wage discrimination to collect damages of between $50,000 and $300,000, and a repeal of the Healthy Youth Act, which had provided requirements to schools that comprehensive and scientifically accurate information about everything from abstinence to contraception be taught at an age-appropriate level.

Walker also signed into law a ban on abortion coverage through policies as part of a health insurance exchange to be created under the federal health care reform law starting in 2014 (the only exceptions would be in cases of rape, incest or medical necessity); and a bill requiring women seeking abortions to undergo a physical exam and consult with a doctor alone, away from her friends and family, in order to make sure she isn't "being pressured into the decision." Doctors who break the law could be charged with a felony.

As usual, working families were a target for Walker as well:

I know that collective bargaining is not a right; it's an expensive entitlement. It's about time somebody stood up for the hardworking taxpayers of our state.

The problem is, of course, that collective bargaining is a right.

Walker has also been railing about how state workers can't be the "haves" while everyone else is a "have not." The state worker he used in an ad to that effect, it turns out is actually one of the have-nots, making only $25,227 a year, certainly not a massive salary by any standards.

In an interview with CBN, Walker made a series of more and more strange claims:

"Any human being, if we're honest about it, you don't want to be hated by anybody, you want everybody to love you," he said. "But I was asked last December, somebody asked me, a supporter, asked me a very interesting question at dinner. He said, 'Did you ever stop and think that maybe if you hadn't gone so far, that you wouldn't be facing a recall?' I said, 'Yeah, sure, but if I hadn't taken the steps I took, we wouldn't have fixed things.' And I said, 'For my kids and their generation I don't want them to inherit a Wisconsin that is not at least as great if not greater than the one I inherited. And you don't get that by not fixing things.' "

"And, to me, that's one of our problems. You can't be afraid to lose," Walker said. "You shouldn't plan on it, but you should make decisions that are ultimately about what's right and what's just and what's best - not just for yourself but for the next wave of young people who are going to inherit our states and our country and not be afraid to lose along the way."

"Why?" he asked. "Because their guys are back to work, they're working again. Unlike my predecessor, who made it very difficult for people building infrastructure, building roads and bridges and rail and things of that nature, we put money back in that had been raided there."

Walker told Brody that he had heard his opponents would spend $70 million to $80 million in the recall race.

Probably most frightening was a final quote:

"We realize that all this is just a temporary thing and God's got a plan for us that, who knows where it might be, beyond just serving as governor of this state, but if we stay true to that, there's always comfort," he said. "And God's grace is always abundant no matter what you do."

Walker for president in 2016?