Governor Walker's frosted pecans.

Here is a recipe for our frosted pecans: http://t.co/E89eTKqsje
— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) December 16, 2013

"I'm in a two-point race with the Koch brothers' favorite Governor — Wisconsin's Scott Walker."

"By contributing today, you'll put another nail in the coffin of the Tea Party movement that's propping up Scott Walker's failed administration."

So writes Mary Burke in her first fundraising letter as a Democratic Party challenger to Walker, and I'm just wondering why it's okay to say "put another nail in the coffin." Whatever happened to civility? Remember when Sarah Palin was attacked for using a target image and tweeting "Don't retreat — RELOAD."

To be fair to Burke, targeting and reloading are metaphors of killing, but the metaphor of nailing down a coffin lid implies that one's victim is already dead. On the other hand, why bother to fight the Tea Party if it's already dead? I'm afraid the implication might be execution by burial, which is quite a disturbing topic. Excerpt from Wikipedia:

During the reign of the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huangdi it is said that approximately 400 to 700 scholars were buried alive near the capital. They were condemned for saving books from destruction after an imperial ban on the classics....

Tacitus, in his work Germania, records that German tribes practiced two forms of capital punishment; the first where the victim was hanged on trees, and another, where the victim was tied to a wicker frame, pushed face down into mud and buried. The first was used to make an example of traitors, the second was used for punishment of dishonourable or shameful crimes, such as cowardice or sodomy....

In medieval Italy, unrepentant murderers were buried alive, head down, feet in the air, a practice referred to in passing in Canto XIX of Dante's Inferno....

Nice to see Governor Walker at the UW basketball game today.

Not that we were there. Meade took that shot from the TV. Walker's in blue not red, apparently in support of Marquette.

"The legal and public relations battle over the investigation connected to the recall campaigns of Gov. Scott Walker and others..."

"... could turn on free-speech issues and the makeup of the state Supreme Court," the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

Fully analyzing the legal arguments in the challenge to the John Doe is impossible because it remains under seal....

James Bopp Jr., an Indiana attorney with a national reputation for representing conservative political clients, has declined to say whether he is involved in this John Doe case, but in an interview with the Journal Sentinel blasted the process and prosecutors in the investigation....

"You're chilling one side of an election that results in an advantage for Democrats," Bopp said.

Bopp also contended that Wisconsin statutes don't spell out clearly what would constitute illegal coordination. "What we have here is a vague law," he said.

"Scott Walker's new book 'Unintimidated' is getting destroyed in the reviews on Amazon right now. The average reviewer gives it only 2.5 stars!"

Says a AFSCME page at Facebook:

Don't waste a second reading it though - let us save you some time by sending you right to the parts where he mocks public employees as lazy, overpaid, and corrupt here...

Linking to the Uppity Wisconsin post that I explained in my post about the Amazon reviews.

and here....

Linking to a Cap Times article attacking the book.

Now, here's your chance to tell Scott Walker how you feel about him -- and his latest attacks on public employees. Submit your own review here on Amazon and then copy it into the comments below as well.

That last "here" goes to Walker's book — I'll substitute an Althouse portal to it — where the top "most helpful" comment says:

I haven't read it, but think you should know that most of these reviews are written by people who have not yet read the book (negative and positive reviews). A union Facebook page is calling on its members to negatively review the book in hopes of lowering the overall rating - even cheering that it went from 2.5 stars to 2 stars (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151792216468061&set=np.420257149.603840067&type=1&theater¬if_t=notify_me). That's pretty sickening. Review the book on its content, not your political affiliation.

Look for reviews that cite page numbers or specifics, not the content that has been taken out of context and linked on the union's Facebook page.

That's what took me to the first link, above. Sample comments at the Facebook page:

You'd think the Kochs could afford to pay for a few more positive reviews. They're slipping.

Maybe I will buy one and make a youtube video burning it! Walker= Bad for Wisconsin!

I'm betting this will be on the remainder tables by next week -- along with Caribou Barbie's opus. Week after next they'll both be headed for the landfill.

Sample 1-star review at Amazon:

My pet varren refuses to relieve himself on this. His bowels seem to be like the contents of the book, unintimidated. No matter how much fiber I feed my varren, or how many facts you present Mr Walker, they both seem to be unable to digest them.

I picked that one because I had to look up "varren."



That union Facebook page is revealing. Herding people over to fake-review a book on Amazon is reminiscent of busing people in from Chicago and elsewhere to take over the protest here in Wisconsin, which is something Walker writes about in his book:

When the protests began, the folks in the capitol were teachers and public employees who were scared and concerned about the changes we had proposed. They brought their families out, and behaved civilly. These were decent citizens, respected in their communities.

But as the protests went on, the ranks of those marching against our reform became more and more radical with each passing day. Instead of regular citizens camping out waiting to testify against our bill, people from outside Wisconsin began to take over. Soon, national union organizers were bringing in groups with insignia from Chicago, Washington, New York, and plenty of other locations across the country.

The signs at the capitol became more radical too, comparing us to Nazis, rapists, and terrorists. Some of the protesters wore Che Guevara T-shirts, bearing the visage of the murderous communist revolutionary (an odd choice of clothing when you’re chanting “This is what democracy looks like!”).

I recommend reading Chapter 24 of "Unintimidated" ("We're Still Here") in which Walker analyzes how the protests backfired. He cites nasty tactics, which were not responded to in kind. ("Over time, I think people in our state saw the difference in the way we conducted ourselves and the way the union bosses conducted themselves.") And now we see the 1-star reviews mounting up, and no one is drumming up 4-star reviews to fight back (even with the taunting, see above, about how the Kochs could be paying for good reviews).

I predict more backfiring: the union is making itself look dishonest and bullying. The book is called "Unintimidated" because they tried to intimidate Walker. Further dishonesty and bullying reinforces Walker's message, making the title more apt.

As one against-the-grain comment over at the AFSCME Facebook page says, from one Lectric Boogaloo:

Go ahead and break the rules of Amazon. You cant write a review without having read the book, its right in the Amazon Terms of Service. Go ahead and get banned, I'm flagging all of these responses and already forwarded this post to Amazon for investigation. Go for it, douchebags.

"Christie leads possible 2016 GOP contenders in CNN/ORC poll."

"A new national poll indicates, that for the first time, there may be an early frontrunner in the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination."

Christie gets 24%, polling against Rand Paul, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rick Perry, Jeb Bush, and Rick Santorum.

What about Scott Walker?

The Cap Times reporter Jack Craver refers to me as a "Walker fan."

He is such a weasel. Craver I mean. Not my darling Scottie.

A rash of 1-star reviews for Scott Walker's book "Unintimidated."

At Amazon. Samples:

1. "Wow, this is not a book. it is a 'selfie' by Scott Walker. He has tanked Wisconsin with his corrupt leadership and this book is so poorly written, I'd give it a zero if I could. Don't waist [sic] your money on this advertisement."

2. "This book is a piece of crap written by the most self-serving narcissist to ever come down the pike. This book should be filed under fiction on the shelves....."

3. "Gah. What a terrible person. There should be a zero stars option. Good god. The man is a narcissist....."

4. "Dear dear Scooter's sad attempt to make himself feel important. Scott walkers lies and unabashed disrespect for the state of Wisconsin and the union workers is a waste of your time and money. Shouldn't he be writing a book on 'How to snake your way into Politics'?"

5. "Written by a 10th grader doing their first 'paper.' that sums up the writing style and lack of references. The introduction should have had at least 50-60 references. Non-fiction requires extensive referencing for credibility. Therefore, this book lacks credibility because it is not properly referenced. As I was reading it, I kept waiting for the hallelujah choruses to break out through my Kindle. via the writing it is abundantly clear that the author hates blue collar workers and would like to open sweat shops."

6. "Governor Walker is completely off the deep end! He wrote: 'In other words, if you're a teacher, police officer, fire fighter, snow plow driver or any other kind public servant, you're not only lazy, overpaid and corrupt, but you're also not a church goer... in fact, you're probably a damn Muslim!'--There is so much wrong with this statement I don't even know where to begin...."

Well, you might begin by Googling that quote to find out if Governor Walker really did write that. I found that quote at Uppity Wisconsin/Progressive News from the Cheddarsphere, which was humorously paraphrasing a list of "Top Ten Ways to tell if you Might be a Member of a public sector union." The list of "Top Ten Ways" really does appear in the book. It was a David-Letterman-style comic list that had appeared in The Daily Caller, and Walker tells of reading it to his "nervous" staff to "lighten the mood" during the 2011 protests.  He doesn't restate the list with a punchline — that's Uppity Wisconsin's doing. He just says: "It did the trick, putting them at ease again."

The list does include the item "4. You know by having a copy of the Holy Koran on your desk your job is 100% safe." Why is that supposed to be funny? Why does it belong with things like "2. You have a Democratic congressman’s lips permanently attached to your butt"? I mean, I see how it would belong on a list with the title "Top Ten 'Jokes' that Prove The Daily Caller Should Not Attempt Humor." But other than that.... We can see that Walker thought it was funny enough to use to cheer up the staff and to tell us about in the book, but let's not substitute the Walker-hater's paraphrase!

ADDED: There are 5-star reviews too, but more than twice as many 1-star reviews. Guess how many 4-, 3-, and 2-star reviews? Right: almost none. The current tally:

5 star: 48
4 star: 3
3 star: 1
2 star: 2
1 star: 133

I'd like to see the numbers on how many of these people actually read the book, but then, in some ways a book like this isn't designed to be read. It's designed to be an occasion for interviews about the book and articles that cherry pick excerpts from the book. I'm actually reading the book myself... in large part because I'm a writer who is looking for things to pick and excerpt.

AND: By the way, Uppity Wisconsin's post title — "Walker 'Joke': Teachers, Public Servants are Lazy, Overpaid Heathens" — inadvertently insults Muslims. Neither The Daily Caller nor Scott Walker referred to Muslims as "Heathens." That's Uppity Wisconsin's term, and it is an insult.

ALSO: The (unlinkable) OED gives as the first definition of the noun "heathen": "One who holds a religious belief which is neither Christian, Jewish, nor Muslim; a pagan." And for the adjective: "Of an individual or people: holding religious beliefs of a sort that are considered unenlightened, now esp. ones of a primitive or polytheistic nature; spec. not of the Christian, Jewish, or Muslim faiths."

From the historical quotes, my favorites:

1726 Swift Gulliver II. iii. i. 6, I was sorry to find more Mercy in a Heathen, than in a Brother Christian.
1852 H. B. Stowe Uncle Tom's Cabin II. xxviii. 139 It would certainly be a greater self-denial to receive heathen among us, than to send missionaries to them.

"Wow, is it cold out. The deer must think the same thing, as I haven't seen a thing."

Scott Walker goes deer hunting.

ADDED: Walker on Fox News, more or less running for President:



ALSO: From Walker's book "Unintimidated":

We soon began to get a steady stream of death threats. Most of these Dave and his team intercepted, and kept from Tonette and me. They were often graphic (one threatened to “gut her like a deer”) but for the most part they amounted to little more than angry venting.
But one afternoon, as I prepared to go out to the conference room for my daily press briefing, Dave came into my office and shut the door. “Sir, I don’t show you most of these, but I thought you ought to see this one.” He handed me a letter addressed to Tonette that had been picked up by a police officer at the Executive Residence in Maple Bluff. It read:

HI TONETTE, Has Wisconsin ever had a governor assassinated? Scotts heading that way. Or maybe one of your sons getting killed would hurt him more. I want him to feel the pain. I already follow them when they went to school in Wauwatosa, so it won’t be too hard to find them in Mad. Town. Big change from that house by [BLANK] Ave. to what you got now. Just let him know that it’s not right to [EXPLETIVE] over all those people. Or maybe I could find one of the Tarantinos [Tonette’s parents] back here. Lots of choices for me.

"Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke is trying to make the case that Wisconsin voters should trust her..."

"... in part, because of the nearly 1,000 jobs created in the state by Trek Bicycle Corp., a firm founded and run by her family."

But now Burke is coming under criticism from some within her own party following a decision last week by the U.S. Department of Labor. The federal agency found that up to 20 former Trek Bicycle employees are eligible for special federal aid via the Trade Adjustment Assistance program because they lost their jobs due to foreign trade.

Actually, this is evidence that the Democratic Party does not exploit its power within government to affect electoral politics.

Some labor officials and liberal activists have been slow to throw their support behind Burke — who is aiming to take on Republican Gov. Scott Walker — because Trek is a nonunion company that has moved much of its production to China.

She's not the nominee yet, but she's not being challenged. I suspect that she's filling a spot so it won't look like the Democrats are declining to challenge Walker. She has her own money to spend.

"That's a tough pill to swallow for Democrats that spent last year bashing Romney for sending jobs to China," said a liberal activist. "Totally ridiculous — I'm ashamed to have Burke as our only candidate."

Liberal talk show host John "Sly" Sylvester... [said] "It's always a sad day for this state and America when companies that claim to be job creators turn to slave wage countries like China for their workforce"....

Why did Burke step up? Presumably to burnish Trek's reputation. Now, Wisconsinites want us to hate Trek? Nice way to treat a Wisconsin company!

"1 judge with tie to John Doe probe signed Scott Walker recall petition."

Headline at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Excerpt:

One judge with at least minor involvement in a secret investigation of campaign fundraising and spending during Wisconsin's recent recall elections signed the recall petition against Gov. Scott Walker two years ago....

Duvall, a former Democratic district attorney of Buffalo County, was appointed to the bench by Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle in 2005 and has been elected twice since then.....

"The way Republicans can win those in the middle is not by abandoning their principles. To the contrary..."

"... the courage to stand on principle is what these voters respect. The way to win the center is to lead." Writes Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal.

Republicans need to do more than simply say no to Mr. Obama and his party's big-government agenda. They can offer Americans positive solutions for the nation's challenges—to reduce dependency, and create hope, opportunity, and upward mobility for all citizens. They need to make not just the economic case for conservative reforms but the moral case as well—showing how conservative policies and ideas will make America not only a more prosperous society but a more just and fair one as well.

When I faced the need to reform collective bargaining in the government, I wanted to win, but I wasn't afraid to lose and didn't worry about getting re-elected. That was profoundly liberating.

Too many people in politics today spend their time trying not to lose instead of trying to do the right thing....

Here's Walker's new book, "Unintimidated," which Meade and I have been reading out loud to each other... and not just because we like to think Scott and Tonette read this blog out loud to each other. The editorial corresponds to Chapter 25: "The Lessons of Wisconsin Can Be Used in the Battle for America." The first of 14 lessons is: "Change the polls, not your principles."

If you know you are doing the right thing, and the polls say voters disagree, change the polls, not your principles. President Reagan used to look at polls not to determine his positions, but to see where he needed to do more to persuade the public. That’s a sign of true leadership.

If I had listened to the polls during the fight over Act 10, I would have backed off of our plan. One poll found that if the gubernatorial election were held again, I would have lost to my opponent by seven points. My approval dropped to 37 percent. But I was so confident our reforms would work that I pressed forward into the political headwinds. And my confidence was vindicated. Our reforms did work. And voters stood with me in the recall election.

I wanted to win, but I also wasn’t afraid to lose. I cared more about getting things done than getting reelected. That liberated me to take bold actions I might never have taken if my first priority had been political survival. Too many people in politics today spend their time trying not to lose instead of trying to do the right thing. I often say that politicians need to spend more time worrying about the next generation than the next election. The irony is that politicians who spend more time worrying about the next generation than the next election often tend to win the next election because voters are starved for leadership.

Really worth reading.

Is Scott Walker's "fixation" on Reagan "creepy"?

The Capital Times writer Paul Fanlund says so, as he identifies "3 Themes" in Scott Walker's just-published book "Unintimidated." The other 2 themes are "He throws even his allies under the bus" and "His egocentricity is just bizarre." This is the Cap Times, appealing its readership of Madison liberals who've been hating Walker for the last 3 years and have been hating Reagan even longer.

On the Reagan "fixation," there's Walker's annual Reagan birthday party (which is also the anniversary of his wedding to his wife Tonette). Here's how Walker describes the party in 2011, which was just before the big Wisconsin protests began.

[On] Saturday, February 12, Tonette and I hosted a dinner at the Executive Residence to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birthday. (I had been in Dallas to see the Packers win the Super Bowl on the sixth, his actual birthday, so we postponed the celebration by a week.) 

Meade and I were reading the book out loud together last night, and at that parenthetical, I said: "Oh, yeah, the protests blotted out all the great afterglow feeling we were having over winning the Super Bowl." That was sad!

Tonette and I host a dinner each year on Reagan’s birthday. We serve his favorite foods— macaroni and cheese casserole, and red, white, and blue Jelly Belly jelly beans— and have musicians perform patriotic songs and Irish music. 

Aw, come on. That's creepy?! That's incredibly sweet. Who gives a party and serves mac-and-cheese and jelly beans? It's beyond unpretentious, and it's just charming and nice. Why shouldn't Republicans celebrate Ronald Reagan, their modern-day icon? And I give Walker credit for putting the celebration on February 6th (or 12th) instead of March 30th (in the style of the Democrats, with their icon JFK (see Rule #8, here)).

It is a wonderful evening, and serves as a reminder for me each year to be hopeful and optimistic just like Ronald Reagan. It happens to be a dual celebration because President Reagan’s birthday is also our wedding anniversary. Tonette jokes that I never forget our wedding anniversary because it is Reagan’s birthday.

Well, isn't that a really low-key and generous way to make your anniversary something that's fun for other people you know? But for Fanlund, that's part of a creepiness profile.

Hey, Fanlund, ever consider whether you're creepy? Maybe Walker seems creepy to you because deep down you know the way you look at him is creepy.

"If you are a Republican and you like New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, then you probably already have your candidate for the 2016 presidential campaign."

"If you do not like Christie, then your candidate for 2016 is Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker," says John Dickerson at Slate, who I doubt is keen on helping Republicans, but check out his argument. Excerpt:

Walker has near hero status in the grassroots for taking on Wisconsin’s public sector unions. Cruz talks about taking stands on principle, but he lost his fight. Walker took a stand, was targeted by the full force of the Democratic machine, and stayed alive. He won a recall election with a larger margin than his original victory. He raised $30 million for that race, so he knows how to tap wealthy donors. Social conservatives also consider him one of their own for his pro-life views and his pedigree: His father was a Baptist minister.

Speaking of the forceful machinery of Walker opposition, the Wall Street Journal had this the other day: "Wisconsin Political Speech Raid/Subpoenas hit allies of Scott Walker as his re-election campaign looms." Now, people can stop posting that link in the comments threads and emailing me about it. It's nice to see the WSJ get involved, but from my perspective out here in Wisconsin, the John Doe investigation became tedious long ago. I do see that there are some new subpoenas. Noted.

Anyway, Walker's book "Unintimidated" is now available, beginning today. Subtitle: "A Governor's Story and a Nation's Challenge."

Don't confuse it with "Unintimidated," subtitle "Wisconsin Sings Truth to Power," which is a coffee table book of photographs celebrating anti-Walker protesters... at least the ones who put their protests in musical form. At only $31.50, it makes a great Christmas gift for the right person.

Lecturing "left-leaning political pundits in Madison" about how "beating Scott Walker is the primary thing."

It's Paul Fanlund at the Capital Times telling them to shut up and get behind Mary Burke.

Good lord, this is a long piece! It takes a lot of words to say shhhh. Fanlund bemoans the "parlor games around process seem to trump pragmatism." The notion of a primary to pick the candidate is dismissed as "inside baseball and petty minutiae." Fanlund would like you to focus on "Walker, backed by ever-compliant GOP toadies in the Legislature, has morphed Wisconsin into a place where politics faces backwards; it’s ugly, mean-spirited, anti-women and anti-intellectual."

I love that he's promoting pragmatism and denouncing anti-intellectuals at the same time.

"[T]here is a growing sense within the Republican political intelligentsia that Christie and only Christie is positioned to solve the major problems that will face the party in 2016."

And: "Christie is increasingly seen as the one candidate who might be able to bridge the divide between the establishment and the tea party that is in the process of ripping the party apart."

Chris Cillizza says as he ranks Christie first among the GOP's possible candidates for 2016.

I interpret those 2 quoted sentences to mean the same thing, which is making 2 inferences:

1. "increasingly seen" = increasingly seen by the Republican political intelligentsia. (It's the intelligentsia that do all the seeing and sensing that matters to pundits like Cillizza.)

2. "the major problems that will face the party in 2016" = "the divide between the establishment and the tea party that is in the process of ripping the party apart." (The tea party is the problem from the perspective of the intelligentsia, right?)

(Also in the ranking: Wisconsin's Scott Walker comes in at #4, up from #7, and the other Wisconsinite, Paul Ryan has fallen from #4 to #9.)

Scott Walker 47%, Mary Burke 45% — in the Marquette poll for next year's race for Wisconsin Governor.

"That's within the poll's margin of error of 3.5 percentage points, making it 'essentially a tossup,' said the poll's director, Charles Franklin."

The poll indicated that 50% of those surveyed had a favorable opinion of Walker and 46% had an unfavorable opinion of him. For Burke, 17% had a favorable view and 14% had an unfavorable view.

Obviously, people don't know much about Burke yet.

Did God prank-call Scott Walker?

Slate columnist David Weigel has a piece titled "Why Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker Credits God for his Political Success." Weigel has Walker's new memoir, "Unintimidated," which has a bit in it about something we talked about back in February 2011 (during the big protests): A prankster pretending to be David Koch got through on the phone to Scott Walker, who talked to him for a while, even as he said things like "You gotta crush that union" to try to get Walker to blurt out something that would be used against him. From Weigel's summary:

[W]hen Murphy/Koch asked about the wisdom of “planting some troublemakers,” Walker said his team had “thought about that” but dismissed it.

Walker haters used that "planting some troublemakers" business as much as they could. (In March 2011, when Meade was physically attacked by protesters, a woman pointed and said "These are Walker plants.")

Back to Weigel, summarizing Walker:

The governor claims that he “hesitated” to take it, and “was upset that my staff had let the call get through to my office, making me look so silly.” He never actually “thought about” the fake troublemakers—he now writes that he “did not want to insult Mr. Koch by saying that we would never do something so stupid.”...

“Only later did I realize that God had a plan for me with that episode,” writes Walker. After his press conference, he picked up his daily devotional and saw the title for Feb. 23: The power of humility, the burden of pride.

“I looked up and said, ‘I hear you, Lord,’” writes Walker. “God was sending me a clear message to not do things for personal glory or fame. It was a turning point that helped me in future challenges, helped me stay focused on the people I was elected to serve, and reminded me of God’s abundant grace and the paramount need to stay humble.”

I can't really tell if Weigel (or the Slate headline writers) think Walker is getting too religion-y here and is claiming that God has special messages and plans for him. (Is Scott Walker a God plant?) I can't even tell if Walker is honestly describing his stages of processing the unpleasant incident. But I do think this account is conventional, mainstream religion. Something bad happens, and you realize that God had a plan. You extract a lesson that lightens the burden from the past and redirects you toward a future.

You don't even need God in the mix to indulge in this sort of positive thinking. What doesn't kill atheists makes them stronger — don't you know?

But Walker haters are going to want to use his religion talk against him. They use anything they can against him. I'm going to be looking out for this, because there's a tendency amongst the media elite to mock religion, to assume — like a governor assuming he's got true supporter on the phone — that everyone they're talking to thinks that anyone who feels God's presence in his life is weird, scary, and surely not to be trusted with the levers of power. They're quite wrong. Especially if they are writing on the internet, where everyone sees what they are saying.

And 90% of Americans believe in God — or as Gallup charmingly puts it "More Than 9 in 10 Americans Continue to Believe in God/Professed belief is lower among younger Americans, Easterners, and liberals." (I love the "Continue to," which implies: Come on, people, after all the evidence, what's your problem?!)

"All the states are competitive on this stuff, but I think Amazon realized that Wisconsin is not only open for business, Wisconsin is good for business."

Said Phil Jennings, president of Next/Partners, Inc. (and Wisconsin Law grad), explaining Amazon's selection of Kenosha for a $250-million distribution facility that brings "1,100 new jobs, including hundreds of high-paying technical and management jobs."

Jennings says he’s never met [Gov. Scott] Walker and didn’t contribute to his campaign, but he says the Republican deserves credit for trying to improve the state business climate. He contrasts that approach with former Gov. Jim Doyle and current Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, both Democrats.

“Unlike Doyle and Quinn, Gov. Walker has worked hard to create the platform where Wisconsin can be attractive to Fortune 50 companies like Amazon,” he says....

Amazon has been criticized for running sweatshop-like operations, but Jennings says the Kenosha development will be a state-of-the art, air-conditioned facility that will include sophisticated package handling equipment.

The quote in the post title refers to the Scott Walker slogan: "Wisconsin is open for business."

ADDED: Meanwhile, in Milwaukee: "Special Prosecutor Named In Investigation Of Possible Criminal Activity Surrounding Scott Walker Recall Election." More jobs... for lawyers.

"Conservatives need to stop playing by the rules set by the left. With creativity and a little innovation, we can redefine the debate on our terms."

Writes Scott Walker, in his new book, which, we are told, criticizes Mitt Romney.

Walker writes that Republicans in 2012 didn't run on their principles, didn't criticize Obama enough and did a "lousy job of presenting a positive vision of free market solutions to our nation's problems in a way that is relevant to people's lives."

The book — "Unintimidated" — won't be out for another month, but you can pre-order it here.