The Fonz is rolling in his grave

There is no other explanation for Scott Walker’s actions other than his hatred of Wisconsin

I think Wisconsin beat up Scott Walker when he was little. Knocked him down, took his lunch money, shoved him into a lake or something. Maybe left him abandoned in one of the beautiful stretches of nature that dwarf the state’s residents. Maybe it said “I may be a moraine, but you’re a moron.”

(That’s a killer joke, for you glacier aficionados)

Anyway, that’s literally the only explanation I have for how he could so single-minded in trying to destroy what makes Wisconsin great. Its progressive tradition I understand him wanting to ruin: he’s a small-minded sycophant to plutocracy. That’s his whole thing. That’s why he wants to destroy labor, end the social safety net, wrongfoot democracy, and turn the “Wisconsin Idea” into a factory for low-wage workers. We’ve covered the destruction of the state in some detail, mostly because we really truly love Wisconsin.

But even with all that being understandable, from certain terrifying angles, his hatred of the environment stands out. For someone who pretends to be just a good ol’ Wisconsin boy who loves fishing and hot ham rolls, he is implacable in his willingness to destroy the natural beauty that gives the state its meaning and its place in America. To rip apart the ecology that created Wisconsin culture.

This is nowhere more obvious than in what he’s done to the Department of Natural Resources, which he’s filled with anti-environment cronies (ok, maybe it was more obvious when he tried to give away thousands of acres to a mining company by promising them he’d remove environmental legislation and then let them use private security forces to beat up citizens protesting on what was still public land. Christ, I can barely type that without seeing red).

Walker’s DNR has essentially been reorganized to make itself more “business-friendly”, which as in Perry’s Texas and Brownback’s Kansas and Fallin’s Oklahoma means “door’s open, boys!” Again, philosophically, that’s understandable, if abhorrent. But it’s how they’ve done it, and the incredible dishonesty they’ve brought to bear on the project, that makes it quintessential Walker, who has never seen something lofty he couldn’t drag down into his scamming heart.

The good people at Urban Milwaukee, especially columnist James Rowan, noticed that a statement on climate change, indeed the DNR’s mission statement, had been dramatically altered to erase any mention of human activity, minimize the destruction of climate change, and pretend that there is nothing we can do. Really, read the whole thing, but the introduction sentence is enough to do it justice.

Was: Earth’s climate is changing. Human activities that increase heat, trapping (green house) gasses are the main cause. Earth’s average temperature has increased 1.4 degrees F since 1850 and the eight warmest years on record have occurred since 1998.

Is: As it has done throughout the centuries, the earth is going through a change. The reasons for this change at this particular time in the earth’s ling history are being debated and researched by academic entities outside the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

(Remember this next time a conservative accuses Dems of “politicizing science”)

I’m going to let their alterations speak for themselves, to see how low and dishonest these people are, and to remind you that Wisconsin isn’t an aberration: it’s a Petrie dish. Walker may have flamed out, but as every Trump appointment and every Gingrichian proclamation reminds us, dishonesty in the name of destroying workers, promoting plutocracy, and ravaging the environment is the order of the day.