The Donald does a better job of attacking The Walker than most Wisconsin Democrats

I would never vote for an overt racist like Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, but I will say one favorable thing about Trump: He’s far better at attacking Scott Walker than most Democrats in Walker’s home state of Wisconsin:

He went down a list of criticisms that seemed the result of an overnight opposition-research effort. “Wisconsin is doing terribly,’’ he said. “The roads are a disaster because they don’t have any money to rebuild them, and they’re borrowing money like crazy.’’

He cited figures for the state’s budget deficit. “I wrote this stuff all down but I don’t need it because I have a really good memory,” he said.

He also accused Mr. Walker of flip-flopping on the Common Core education standards, having once supported them. “Scott Walker changed when he saw he was getting creamed, so now he’s not in favor,’’ he said.

While I am a Bernie Sanders supporter, I disagree with Bernie’s support for Common Core; in fact, it’s one of only a few issues where I disagree with Bernie. I don’t like the idea of wealthy people like Bill Gates determining every state and school district’s curriculum and academic standards.

Anyways, back to the main subject of this blog post…while Trump is a blowhard and a half, he’s right when it comes to how awful Scott Walker’s far-right agenda has been for Wisconsin.

However, trying to find Democrats in Wisconsin who are even half as effective as Trump when it comes to attacking Walker is like trying to find a tennis racket at a golf pro shop. Most Democrats in Wisconsin tend to focus on only a few issues like reproductive rights and student loan reform, and they usually try to sound as nice and moderate as possible. When most Wisconsin Democrats criticize Walker, they usually come across as weak, tepid, defensive, too mild-mannered, and appeasing toward Republicans. There are a few exceptions to this, mostly Democratic/progressive elected officials from the Madison area and many progressive activists throughout Wisconsin.

Additionally, Trump’s far-right agenda isn’t much different, if any different at all, than Walker’s far-right agenda or the far-right agendas of the other Republican presidential candidates. For Trump to enact his political agenda nationwide would likely be as bad, if not worse, than Walker’s agenda has been for Wisconsin.

Also, regarding Trump’s remarks about roads in Wisconsin being terrible, he’s actually right…only Connecticut and Illinois have a higher percentage of roads in poor or mediocre condition than Wisconsin.

Trump’s rise in the polls for the Republican presidential nomination has prompted Walker’s supporters to get really desperate, even using left-wing attack lines of their own against Trump:

A fundraiser for Scott Walker’s presidential campaign called Donald Trump “DumbDumb” in a fundraising invitation and said electing the New York developer would be “a total and complete disaster for the country.”

“As you’ve seen Gov Walker is now well ahead of everyone not named DumbDumb (aka Trump) in the national polls,” wrote Walker fundraiser Gregory Slayton, a New Hampshire venture capitalist who served as consul general to Bermuda during the George W. Bush administration. “He’s also a plain spoken member of the 99% (as opposed to someone pretending to be so)…and that will be a (key success factor) in 2016.”

Walker may not be a member of the 1%, but his policies benefit the 1% and virtually nobody else. Electing Trump, Walker, or any other right-wing Republican to the White House would be an unmitigated disaster for this country…Wisconsin has basically been a lavatory (pun intended) for a far-right political agenda for the last four and a half years, and it’s been an absolute disaster there.

Chris “Capper” Liebenthal has an excellent post about Trump’s attacks against Walker here.

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ENDORSEMENT: Nicholas J. Stamates (write-in) for 20th Senate District of Wisconsin

While there’s only one candidate, far-right Republican Duey Stroebel, who has his name on the ballot in the upcoming special election in the 20th Senate District of Wisconsin, which includes the northern part of the Milwaukee suburbs and rural areas east of Fond du Lac, there is a Democrat who is running a write-in campaign against Stroebel: Nicholas J. Stamates.

Stamates isn’t interested in campaign donations, he’s interested in votes. Stamates supports legalizing recreational marijuana and taxing marijuana sales in order to help fill a large state budget deficit that Wisconsin faces. Additionally, Stamates opposes Common Core State Standards, which is a set of corporate, neoliberal education standards that are supported by Republicans like Jeb Bush and billionaires like Bill Gates, as well involve large amounts of standardized testing that make it more difficult for teachers and administrators to be creative with teaching curriculum and inspire their students to learn.

You can view Stamates’s website and campaign platform online. If a write-in line is available on the 20th Senate District of Wisconsin special election ballot, I encourage residents of the 20th Senate District to write-in Nicholas J. Stamates.

Scott Walker contradicts himself on education in State of the State of Wisconsin Address

In his State of the State address, Republican Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker railed against Common Core State Standards (CCSS), claiming that local school boards should have the authority to set academic standards for K-12 schools in Wisconsin, which they currently do.

However, as Rebecca Kemble, a columnist for The Progressive magazine and a candidate for the District 18 seat on the Madison (WI) Common Council, noted, Walker’s reasoning behind his opposition to Common Core State Standards in his State of the State address directly conflicts with his support for 2015 Wisconsin Assembly Bill 1 (AB1), an atrocious piece of proposed legislation that, among other things, would allow a newly-created state panel stacked with anti-public education bureaucrats and politicians to take poorly-performing schools away from the local school districts and give them to millionaire charter school operators.

While I’m opposed to Common Core State Standards like Walker is, my opposition to CCSS is for different reasons: I believe that CCSS overemphasizes career preparation in K-12 education, something that should be the responsibility of colleges, universities, and vocational schools, and is tied to a system of high-stakes teacher evaluations based on standardized testing, which does nothing more than shame teachers. I believe that states or, in states where local school districts determine curriculum and standards, local school districts should set their own K-12 academic standards that hold schools, administrators, and teachers accountable based on the curriculum that is taught in the classroom, is developmentally appropriate for each grade level, and prepare students for higher education.

Kemble also noted that, while he was talking about AB1, Walker said that he thinks that there’s no need for bureaucrats and politicians to make decisions on education. That also directly conflicts with Walker’s support AB1, since AB1 would put many important decisions about K-12 education in Wisconsin into the hands of a 13-member state panel of…you guessed it…bureaucrats and politicians.

Scott Walker’s remarks about education in his State of the State address and his support for the atrocious AB1 legislation that would destroy public education in Wisconsin proves that he is two-faced when it comes to K-12 education in Wisconsin.