Scott Walker Enters Republican Race for President

Missing is the guy taking the picture, of course

Governor Walker has finally gotten good and ready and is now joining the pack as the fifteenth individual to announce for President on the Republican side.  The 47-year-old tweeted "I'm in", joining a field of 14 others in his party competing for the 2016 election.  "I'm running for president to fight and win for the American people," he said in a video released on Monday.  He will formally announce his run for US president later at an event in Milwaukee.  The governor defeated a recall election and clashed with labour unions in his home state, and cut taxes by nearly $2bn (£1.3bn).  Scott Walker enters the race for the Republican presidential nomination in an enviable position. For most of this year he's been the frontrunner in Iowa, which is the first state to vote in 2016. He's also among the leaders in New Hampshire, making him the only Republican candidate with a realistic chance of starting the primary season with back-to-back wins.  Mr Walker's appeal has been as a candidate who energises grass-roots conservative Tea Party activists while, as an incumbent governor of a moderate state, is still acceptable to the party's establishment.   If I may venture a slice of personal opinion- - Scott Walker has the right wing idiot vote sewn up tight.  Many people now for Trump - - if sheer idiocy is what attracts them- - will switch from Trump to Walker.  I think you will see this in the next few weeks before the first Republican debate in about three weeks.  Thom Hartman compares the Wisconsin governor unfavorably to the Democratic governor of neighboring Minnisota.  Both states are ethnically similar with a Scandenavian bent.  However Minnisota is economically much better off with the rich paying their fair share, and jobs and the infrastructure tended to.  Besides this,  Scott Walker’s obvious weakness is that he has absolutely no background in foreign policy and Hillary Will eat him alive in this area if any reporter asks any kind of detailed questions that require background knowledge.   Hopefully Hillary will be wise enough to answer these questions herself and not punt.

They have announced that the Iranian nuclear negotiations may be agreed upon tomorrow, to give congress something to vote on either up or down.  Senator Cotton believes any negations coming out of these sessions should be voted down because John Kerry has given away too much and gotten nothing in the way of real promises in return.  He may be right.  John Boehner echoes this saying that “No deal is better than a bad deal”.  We need to go back to imposing even stiffer sanctions so that Iran will be more amenable to a treaty the US can actually live with.  John Kerry has spent more time in Europe out of the country than any secretary of state in the past thirty years, and seems inclined, come Hell or high water to produce some sort of agreement.  Personally I am less keen on the whole idea of negotiating Iran’s giving up Nukes than I was a few months ago, and it’s been mentioned that bombing Iran back to the stone age is still on the table.   The biggest reason why I wanted this treaty in the first place is because the United States is war weary.  She is tired and her people are tired- - and a Nuke free Iran would go a long way toward peace.

I watched Face the Nation and it seemed to be longer than an hour, but they filled the thing with so many ads it’s hard to tell.  There was a question of Bernie Sanders where I believe he is to the left of me.  He was asked whether he agreed with the Pope’s condemnation of Capitalism per se.  My point is that it’s easy for a “Holier than thou” minister or whoever, who is well paid and has some mindless crowd cheering him on- - to condemn “Money” as the root of all evil.  I remember the sort of remarks Mark Bove has made about some sort of capitalist venture at our church like a car wash or something- - where money changes hands.  Some people believe Christianity is “too holy to talk about such a dirty subject as money”.    I can be an avid football fan, to continue the analogy- - and still be a firm believer in playing by the rules with referees and out of bounds lines and all.  After the rules are what make it football- - and not just some spontaneous brawl in the street.   It seems Adam Smith himself was aware of the pitfalls of capitalism being “ultra virus” or out of bounds and out of control- - himself.

Lamar Alexander gave the Saturday Republican response on the subject of getting rid of “No Child Left Behind” which there is a bi-partisan concencus for doing.  Let’s give more power back to the state and local school boards.  I turned on the computer and listened to KEIB on I Heart Radio that way.  They were talking about an all vegetarian, no soy, no gluten protein shake thing.   Then it was “Hardball”.   Donald Trump has taken to bashing Marco Rubio on his immigration flip flop, and Jeb Bush in general, and has even criticized Governor Perry for “failure to solve the immigration problem”.  Yet leave it to Chris Matthews and company to come after Trump on the liberal skeletons in his political closet.  He is pro choice, and pro gays in the military, and for strong Social Security and even favors some form of Health Care.  If these facts become generally known he would have real problems with fellow Republican beasties.   Then the program talked about the taking down of the Confederate flag.  Then they attacked Bernie Sanders on the idea that his “son” is not the child of his wife but of another woman.  But I take exception to the notion that Sanders is not open to fielding questions.  We know all sorts of things about Sanders’ political past dating from college and it’s all good.  Sanders has been amazingly consistent- - much more so than - - Me, for instance.   The evidence mounts that Chris Matthews is moving to the political right.  For instance Matthews has a seventeen minute interview with Ted Cruise, which is for all practical purposes a friendly interview.  We need to make clear that Raul Cruise fought FOR the Castro revolution- - so the beatings he received at age seventeen were not from the Castro forces.   However the snagging point is the idea of Supreme Court justices running for office.  Ted Cruz favored the judges when they elected Bush. 

 I watched the Mc Laughlin group but nothing is notable except Buchannon is still sticking up for Putin and Mort Zuckerman is still saying Russia is the most dangerous country to world security.  Actually there is a new guy in the President's cabinet who just said the same thing in a congressional hearing, that Russia is our greatest threat to world peace.   I think Pat is right.  We need Russia as an ally against China.  It's better to have Russia on our side rather than side against us and with China in a conflict.  In the old days we used to recognise truths like these.  We also need Russia to help us solve our problems in Syria and Iran.  Once again it's better to have Russia FOR us in these conflicts rather than AGAINST us.  Someone said "There is no inherent reason why the US and Russia have to be enemies".   We're certainly never going to defeat them in an all out War, which could go nuclear.  Pat also says “We need to go easy on Greece”.   Greece has already paid heavily for their political borrowing yet their debt, like a pay day lender in the Ghetto, only grows and grows.  Why are they "trying to get blood our of a turnup".  What if Russia makes an offer to pay Greece's debt as part of some political quid pro quo.  Then the US and Europe would have egg on our faces.  Do we really want to see Greece move into the Russian orbit?  Think about it.