Scott Walker Stands By Claim Reagan's Union-Busting Was 'Most Significant' Foreign Policy Decision

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Huffington Post

By Ashley Alman

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) is doubling down on claims that the strongest foreign policy move in his lifetime was former President Ronald Reagan's decision to fire 11,000 air traffic controllers.

In 1981, almost 13,000 air traffic control employees walked off the job when contract negotiations between the federal government and the controllers union stalled. Reagan claimed the strike was illegal and demanded the air traffic controllers return to work; when some 11,000 did not, he fired them.

Walker, who has long idolized Reagan and previously lauded the former president's standoff with air traffic control, on Saturday called it "the most significant foreign policy decision of my lifetime" during an address at the Club for Growth's winter meeting in West Palm Beach, Florida.

"It sent a message not only across America, it sent a message around the world," Walker said, according to The Washington Post, claiming the action showed foreign allies and enemies that "we weren't to be messed with."

FULL story at link.





Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/28/scott-walker-ronald-reagan_n_6775184.html

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Reminds me of the South Park episode on Mormons.

Dum dum dum dum dumb.

[TwilightGardener]

2. I've yet to see a photo of him that isn't full of derp.

[NickB79]

20. I'm sure his campaigners are working on one

But I'm afraid they may have reached the limits of what PhotoShop can do.

[TwilightGardener]

21. Maybe he can borrow Rick Perry's Sooper-Smart glasses.

[lutefisk]

40. He tried the glasses look...didn't make him look smarter

[Major Hogwash]

36. His haircut makes him look like . . .

. . . he has had a lobotomy.

[TwilightGardener]

38. LOL, you're right. Something off about that hairline.

[Shrike47]

3. Yessir, the Russians and ISIS would just fold before a manly man like Walker. Sure.

The Pukes are going to walk us into another war or two, if they get the chance.

[appalachiablue]

7. He should hook up with Paul Ryan. For work outs, px90 thing. Cruz too. No he's hopeless.

[jtuck004]

4. "...it sent a message around the world" < that working people are disposable in the

pursuit of wealth, that not paying your bills makes you appear rich when you aren't, a few others.

Messages we have yet to recover from.

[TeamPooka]

5. Tell Scott Walker that Slavery sent a foreign policy message too. nt

[appalachiablue]

6. Is he stuck in the 80s, the neo 50s? Bircher goon.

[midnight]

37. Spot on. And there is a good reason you get this. He is Koch.

[cstanleytech]

8. Ya know the irony is Reagan was SAG president so at one time he was for unions

until he turned against them which was probably when he saw that his future wasnt in pictures but in politics where he could line his pockts because he wasnt exactly a great actor.

[BlueStater]

9. You'd think the Repukes would have a problem with this statement.

After all, according to their version of history, Ronnie ended the Cold War.

[Enrique]

10. what about pulling out of Lebanon?

selling arms to Iran?

Giving arms to the mujahideen, and training them? That turned out to be a pretty big one.

[Still In Wisconsin]

11. Ah yes... Reagan's policies effectively created Bin Laden

The ultimate CIA blowback.

[Iliyah]

12. Walker is boderline with Palin

[Octafish]

13. Down goes Walker.

That was fast.

[riversedge]

16. oh, they will keep him awile.

[Lefta Dissenter]

32. oops!

I read that a different way. Must have been the photo.

[riversedge]

14. This is Walker's desperate laughable attempt to link himself with Ron Reagan.. whow

He sounds just plain STUPID

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. He was born Nov 1967, so he thinks that's more important than all of these:

bombing Cambodia
establishing relations with China
pulling out of Vietnam
supporting the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan
selling arms to Iran
supporting Saddam in his war against Iran
arming the Contra terrorists
talking to Gorbachev
chucking Saddam out of Kuwait
intervening in Bosnia and Kosovo
removing the Taliban from power in Afghanistan
manufacturing a false case for invading Iraq
invading Iraq
torturing
screwing up the occupation of Iraq

plus much that is more important than some of the stuff I've listed, I'm sure (such as not doing things at certain times).

He really think he sounds presidential when he says a bit of union-bashing was an important foreign policy decision? Has he ever talked to a foreigner? The air traffic control fight is so far down on the list of what people outside the USA know or think about Reagan, I'd have said he was trolling, if I had any evidence the guy has a sense of humor, or isn't constantly thinking about how to get to be president.

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. Reagan's ambassador to the USSR calls this "utter nonsense"

Scott Walker: Records show Soviets treated Ronald Reagan more seriously after he fired controllers

Reagan's own ambassador to the Soviet Union, Jack Matlock, told us: "It's utter nonsense. There is no evidence of that whatever."

Matlock questioned whether Soviet leaders even paid much attention to the firings, saying: "At that point, their big question was whether (Reagan) was going to attack them."
...
For a statement that is false and ridiculous, our rating is Pants on Fire.

http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2015/jan/28/scott-walker/scott-walker-records-show-soviets-treated-ronald-r/

[Enrique]

29. this myth has been around on RW radio for years

RW radio where "false and ridiculous" goes unchallenged. I'm glad Walker brought it out into the light where it can be called out.

[Midnight Writer]

33. So that's where it came from

An old friend of mine recently told me that "Reagan fired the air traffic controllers, and that sent a message to Kruschev (yes, that is what he said) that America wasn't going to put up with his shit, and then he told him to tear down the Wall, and he did". He also claims Pink Floyd's The Wall album was a tribute to Reagan and Thatcher.

I had never heard any of this and wondered where it came from.

And yes, my friend is a 35-year member of a government employee union, and was fired a few years back and got re-instated after the union spent two years fighting for him.

[Bartlet]

18. That wasn't foreign policy

that was domestic policy and I would expect someone pretending to run for the office of president to know the difference. So far Walker has shown himself to be poorly prepared to run for high office. As much as the Koch brothers love their toady, he is not presidential material by any stretch of the imagination.

[Still In Wisconsin]

19. He's got no choice really.

This is where his lack of "worldliness" comes back to bite him in the butt. He has zero foreign policy creds. Scott Walker's idea of foreign policy is making a bet with the Governor of Washington over the Packers-Seahawks game.

[graegoyle]

22. So, let's take a look:

Fighting against unions is like fighting foreign terrorists and firing members of the air traffic controllers--who are responsible for the safety of millions of people--are good to this...person.

Which reads as: He is against Americans who are trying to get ahead in this country and sees them as a foreign uprising in our country.

And the rubes love him.

[Earth_First]

23. He is trying his damndest to control an appearance of foreign policy experience..

...he is failing miserably.

So far it's been organized labor = ISIS and a failed domestic policy analogy.

Personally, I say just let him go...he's hanging himself and creates some really potent material to hang around the necks of his bedfellows.

[CanonRay]

24. What's he gonna do, tell the truth

and say he's full of shit and has no foreign policy experience?

[blkmusclmachine]

25. Loony.

[freebrew]

26. Funny,(?)...

It seems that after the air-controller's union was busted, lots of airline companies went bust.

Also, remember raygun's transportation guy saying for the first time in US history that profit trumped safety.

A tradition carried on by bush and *.

[underpants]

27. "It's utter nonsense"

Walker made almost identical comments during a January MSNBC appearance, where he claimed there were documents that proved the Soviet Union treated the U.S. differently following the standoff.

"Years later, documents released from the Soviet Union showed that that exactly was the case," he said. "The Soviet Union started treating [Reagan] more seriously once he did something like that. Ideas have to have consequences. And I think [President Barack Obama] has failed mainly because he's made threats and hasn't followed through on them."

PolitiFact investigated the claims, finding no evidence the documents ever existed. "It's utter nonsense," Jack Matlock, Reagan's ambassador to the Soviet Union, told PolitiFact. "There is no evidence of that whatever."

[SnakeEyes]

31. Seems to conflate

The strike and walking out of reykjavik

[Turbineguy]

28. "we weren'to to be messed with"

Neither was Hitler.

For a while.

[lutefisk]

30. Standing by his previous statements could be Walker's undoing

Walker will never admit he was wrong about anything, and that is how he can be held to account and exposed as the empty liar-for-hire talking point automaton that he is. He's slippery, but when pressed he will just clam up. That won't work if he keeps being pressured with follow up questions by a knowledgeable press. It's a little late in life for Walker to cram a world full of knowledge into that scheming brain or develop the critical thinking skills he lacks.

He's pathologically ambitious, and he's been very successful with his limited skill set on the small stage of Wisconsin, but that's not enough anymore.

[UpInArms]

34. o.m.g. what a moran!

n/t

[Major Hogwash]

35. Because union members all live in foreign countries, don'tcha know!

Walker is even dumber than Sister Sarah.
Seriously, he didn't even graduate from college.
How this bonehead became a Governor is beyond me.

[Arkana]

39. Goddamn, I didn't think anyone could be dumber than Dubya,

but Scott Walker is making a REAL run at the crown.