Squinty Koch-worshipper Scott Walker, behaving in his familiar cartoon villain fashion, removed a specially commissioned David Lenz painting of three disadvantaged Wisconsin kids skipping down a snowy street from the mantelpiece of the governor’s mansion. This seems about right, because the smiling faces of poor children probably leave scorch marks on Scott Walker’s soul. Show him a painting of some suffering, hungry children and he’ll put that into the statehouse next to his statue collection of unemployed teachers with untreated illnesses. The painting, which was part of a series of paintings with “subjects intended to remind state leaders of the people they represent,” was replaced by a painting of a bald eagle. Scott Walker likes to be reminded of eagles, the people who elected him. FREEDOM WINS.
From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:
In an interview, Lenz said he carefully selected the three children portrayed in “Wishes in the Wind.” The African-American girl, featured in a Journal Sentinel column on homelessness, spent three months at the Milwaukee Rescue Mission with her mother. The Hispanic girl is a member of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee. And the boy’s father and brother were killed by a drunken driver in 2009.
“The homeless, central city children and victims of drunk drivers normally do not have a voice in politics,” Lenz explained in an email. “This painting was an opportunity for future governors to look these three children in the eye, and I hope, contemplate how their public policies might affect them and other children like them.”
He added: “I guess that was a conversation Governor Walker did not want to have.”
No, Scott Walker cannot have this conversation about poor children, because they do not really exist. [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel via ThinkProgress]
{ 178 comments }
Koch Blocker Scott Walker didn't like it when the eyes of the three kids followed him where ever he went in the room.
Nah…Walker is incapable of empathy. Rather than feel guilt, he would show the eyes off as party trick.
If the eagle has tears in its eyes (as it should), Walker has no idea why.
And he also spends a lot of time with his fingers in his ears chanting, "Nyah-yah I can't hear you" unless you wave buckets of cash at him.
The Children of the Poorz are the first victims of Walker's Koch Bruddahs-Grover Norquist-inspired policies. Who needs to be reminded of that?
He's looking for a solid gold "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" statue to go beneath the painting.
Only with "hear" and "speak" broken off.
Scott Walker learned his philosophy on life from this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF8wLg5Asgo
Worthington's Law will be passed into actual law soon.
Walker's favorite portraits are those of George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Andrew Jackson and Ben Franklin. Oh, Hell yes. He is said to be especially fond of Ben Franklin portraits, so much so that the Koch Brothers gifted him with suitcases full of them during his gubernatorial election campaign last year.
I am now imagining his governor as a mid/late nineties Bad Boy Records music video. Charles &/or David Koch is Puff Daddy, with milquetoast Scooter as, of course, Ma$e.
Oh please. There are much more important issues for Republicans to spend their time on. Like Weiner's weiner.
Pictures of eagles? You know, if you're going to be an evil, hateful fucktard, at least be an original evil hateful fucktard.
Eagles that his pollution policies will kill. EVIL HATEFUL FUCKTARD!
The eagle is sacred to native Americans, pretty darn much every tribe. I hear firsthand they are universally offended by how white European-Americans have appropriated it for their own selfish, secular, narrow political uses.
Stop the whining, liberals. He's now changed it to a painting of a bald eagle eating a diverse group of poor, hungry, sick children, OK? Happy now? Jeez…
Off topic – The ABE is supposed to represent America: Power, Freedom, etc. In real life, the ABE is a scavenger that would just as soon eat something dead or steal food from another animal as it would swoop down from its aerie to snag the noble trout. Also, "For a scavenger like the bald eagle, a seal or deer carcass would be an unexpected large food supply. Rich in protein, the bodies will feed a group of eagles for days. Though many calories will be obtained, they will be lost in fighting over the food.""
Actually, the ABE is an apt symbol for the US after all.
It'll have to go, of course, once Donald Trump becomes President.
Ben Franklin wanted the turkey to be the official American bird. Another apt symbol.
I think Ben was thinking of the Wild Turkey, not the bloated butterball packed into factory farm feedlots. The wild turkey is actually a pretty smart bird.
I would have thought it would be all the R presidents playing cards. http://www.andythomas.com/04linkpage.aspx
Next, he'll be distributing candy to babies on the front lawn of the governor's mansion just so he can take it away, all the while twirling his waxed mustache, flaring his cape, and demanding that their mothers 'must pay the rent' as he ties them to railroad tracks.
Fuck it. Why didn't he just put up a picture of Ayn Rand?
Leave his wanking material out of it.
Atlas Fapped.
The only thing worse, for fapping, than Ayn Rand is Golda Meir.
I don't think I'd put Golda Meir's picture on the cover of Vogue, but at least she wasn't a self-satisfied prick who wrote a bunch of crappy books that sociopaths use to justify being inhumane.
If you can wank to that you can wank to anything.
Because for Walker, looking in to Rand's cold, soulless eyes would be too much like looking into a mirror.
'The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?' said Scrooge.
'They are. Still,' returned the gentleman,' I wish I could say they were not.'
'Are there no prisons?"
'Plenty of prisons,' said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
'And the Union workhouses.' demanded Scrooge. 'Are they still in operation?'
'Both very busy, sir.'
'Oh. I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,' said Scrooge. 'I'm very glad to hear it.'
See, it's that Union bit that throws 'em off…
Walker probably kept throwing nickels and dimes at the painting and when it wouldn't leave he had security remove it from the grounds.
He probably just kept walking by it muttering "I don't have any money. Wisconsin is broke."
America the beautiful.
Just fuckin' beautiful.
Ad comment – OT: The "Cuban Beauty" ad – the video still shows her lying on a bed of hot peppers while her crotch is covered under a pile of same.
Ladies, help me out here. If just one of those peppers leaked its juices just a little bit, wouldn't that be rather uncomfortable?
Latina brunettes and hot peppers. Don't ruin my suspension of disbelief.
(fap fap fap fap fap)
Hate to break it to you: those seeming-porn ads on political sites always go to PETA propaganda and don't give what they promise.
I like PETAS. I stuff some veal in them with a little hot sause….That's the bomb!!!
How you feeling? Hot Hot Hot!
As someone who has inadvertantly touched my lady bits after eating jalapenos, I would have to concur.
Oops, I just inadvertently touched myself, too.
(Tweet to follow.)
Brilliant
Hang in there. Seriously.
the way peppers affect my fingers and lips- I am not letting them near my old lady parts
Prolly as much if some of that juice leaked on yer wang there, dashboard. In a word, YOWZA!!1
There is a fine, fine line betwixt the erotic and the hey wait a minute ooowwWWWWW OH MY GOD GET IT OFFGETITOFF AAARRRHRHRGHSASASHSHAGARRRGHH.
Safety word.
The jalapeno will uderstand the safety word? Maybe I'm not following this thread correctly.
It might…I've heard less reasonable things from the teatard crowd, recently. Or, maybe the artistic director who thought putting peppers on the privates was a good call.
Let me just warn anybody from accepting a BJ from a chick with a mouthful of ginger ale. Sounds fizzy and sexy, but burns like a motherfucker.
So, I guess the Noxzema hand job is out of the question, then?
I think that might be kinda soothing and cooling, but may god have mercy on your junk if you try some IcyHot, that shit is not cool or hot.
Oh, come on DB. Do you expect us to believe that you never dabbed just a bit of Ben-Gay on your willie, "just to see"?
You didn't? But I thought every horny adolescent did th…
Um, never mind.
I can honestly say that I had never considered that…ever. However, there was a kid in my 7th grade class who had unnatural relations with his mother's ElectroLux.
Yes.
Because the kitten isn't as immediately offensive as a painting of the Koch brothers bashing each one of the Lenz childrens heads in with said 9-iron while shouting "you bunch of moochers! Our father gave us nothing and look where we are! Pull yourselves up by yer bootstraps!" Did I mention Republicans and libertarians all live in this amnesia timewarp where they aren't born with silver spoons shoved up their asses and multi-billion dollar companies to inherit so they can pretend they know a fucking thing about hard work or living on their own merits when they tell the rest of to?
The capasin in hot peppers is an antibiotic.
Some enterprising artist (Thomas 'Kinky' Kinkade, I'm looking at you) would make a fortune off Koch-publicans by mass producing paintings of lion-clawed eagles feasting on the entrails of non-aborted children of America's unachievers. Now that's ART!
Jon Gnagy could get behind that, and maybe the "take ze magic white" guy, too!
“subjects intended to remind state leaders of the people they represent,”
Sooooo why not replace it with a picture of the Koch brothers bashing in the head of a kittin with a 5 iron?
Everyone knows that you use a Driver on Kittens, a 5-iron is for puppies.
Well of course he did. Because he wanted some art that was more approprate.
Like a portrait of him on his knees choking down some billionaire Koch.
You can’t go wrong with an eagle picture especially a crying eagle picture to remind Walker of the things that the liberals are forcing down our throats like job killing bills, universal health care, constitution raping and affordable education. Weep Eagle, weep!
His spokesman claims the eagle painting was Civil War-era inspired and the purpose of hanging it was to honor the 150th anniversary — double FAIL then, as that's what confederate flags mounted over Capitol grounds are for. Patriotic pedantry should be flaunted in full public view not confined to the visibility of the privileged few!
This guy is a movie character, right?
Not the elected governor of an actual state???
~
Hell, that "Wiscon$sin Is Open For Business" sign looks like something a liberal would make to mock conservatives; this guy, along with Rick Scott in Florida, are so openly driven by pure greed and evil that, if they were characters in a movie or TV show that was not aimed at children I would find them ridiculously unrealistic cartoonish supervillains. Even Lex Luthor isn't this openly evil and tries to hide behind a facade of philanthropy.
"This guy is a movie character, right?
Not the elected governor of an actual state??? "
Yeah, like the Terminat–
aw, crap.
I clearly remember Scott running on a platform of fuck the middle class and let’s ignore the poor. I can see why he feels he has a mandate.
Actualy he did run on that platform, I live in a Milwaukee suburb and work with Walker supporters and the the more hateful he got the more supportive they got. WI is almost entirely white and older….it is baby boomer country and boomers ain't nice.
That's just sad.
If Walker sees Delbert Grady in the Governor's Mansion then we are in for a treat!
"You've always been the caretaker, sir."
The children in the painting were saying to Walker "Come play with us. Forever."
I can't wait till those poors recall him and the other right wing thugs. Maybe that painting should be in the Statehouse.
Where's your Eagle now, assholes?
Walker will commission Thomas Kinkade to paint Rethuglican Realizm murals at the State Capital (with the new Koch-inspired spelling) in 3, 2, …..
Oh, and "Wonkette Jr.". Very nice altie textie.
Some of the Wonkette Juniors (or would that be "Wonkettes Junior"?) are good with the alt.text, and some still need to learn and just give us the image's file name.
Hmm..I'm kinda lookin' at you, Sorosbot.
The thing about kids is that some grow up to join unions. Kids can't be trusted.
How much can kids contribute to politicians? If they really have needs, why don't they have lobbyists out in waves to make their case? No answer to that, huh?
For far too long, Madison has been in the pocket of Big Kids.
I just want to know if the kids are alright.
And Walker wants to make sure the kids are all Right.
Niiiiiice!
Needs moar American Jesus. http://wonkette.com/411469/real-american-records-...
He's pissed that those lazy layabout poor children aren't where they belong, in the coal mines.
The Chinese coal mines.
Well, considering the Koch brothers are like less-likable versions of Sam the Eagle, I guess the new picture *does* remind him of who he represents.
I heard Scott Walker got 78% of the soaring bald eagle vote and 0% of the child vote, so it makes sense.
"Hey, kids! Guess what else you don't have? A place on my fucking wall!!! Now GET OUT! SECURITY!!"
Maybe Gov. Kochsucker should commission a painting of a bald eagle baking an apple pie and waving a flag while poor, hungry children are waterboarded.
"Maybe Gov. Kochsucker should commission a painting of a bald eagle baking an apple pie and waving a flag while riding in a Nascar race and reading the bible while poor, hungry children are waterboarded while wearing their authorized thriftshop clothing while their parents are frisked to make sure they don't have more than $20 on them before paying the bill for the cost of the water."
I think you just wrote Gov. McKochgobbler's next piece of legislation. Kudos…
Oh. Shit. Sorry.
"… while poor, hungry children are waterboarded ON BILL KOCH'S YACHT." Fixed.
This is yet more evidence that Walker is a complete idiot when it comes to communication. There is a good reason to put up the picture of Old Abe, an eagle that went along with the 8th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the Civil War, to commemorate the 150th anniversary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Abe
However, you announce that in advance (so this kind of thing doesn't happen) and put the picture being replaced in some other prominent location. Or, you put Old Abe in the other prominent location, keeping the politically charged picture where it is. Instead, he ties his shoelaces together and falls on his face again.
It really is a tough call with Scooter as to stupid or mean: Your evidence could support both simultaneously: He may be stupid about public relations (his staff more properly) as you cite or he may just like the "purty eagul pitcher" and hate the "dumb poor kid pitcher" and not know a fucking thing about the historical background of the portrait. I tend to favor dumb and mean over just dumb since it *is* Emperor Scooter I we're talking about.
Scott Walker would rather see paintings of Kochs all day long (there has to be a "weiner" joke somewhere in there).
I was expecting Ashcroft's crooning to come into the picture at some point…
He's just trying to keep his name in the papers by ripping off ideas from other Republican Governors. Next, look for him to helicopter/limo into a Tosa East baseball game.
Maybe he'll throw a few live turkeys from the helicopter just before Thanksgiving, Because, compassion!
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."
Best ever WKRP.
Have you seen the picture? Amazing and incredibly realistic. And reality is something that harshes Scotty's Koch buzz, so it had to go.
Walker can't handle the truth.
Those 3 kids need to get jobs instead of expecting the government to help them!
Rugged individualism, boot-straps, etc.
He tried telling them that massive tax cuts to his supporters would lead to them getting jobs some day, but they just wouldn't listen.
The little bastards wanted SCHOOLS and TEACHERS for cryin' out loud.
Fuck 'em hard then send them over to the State House for a LOT more. They'll give them something to cry about – "Hey, kid- Disable THIS!"
But they better buy their boot-straps at a thrift store!
Republican Jeebus didn't intend for them to shop above their station.
That's right…Hitler.
“This painting was an opportunity for future governors to look these three children in the eye, and I hope, contemplate how their public policies might affect them and other children like them.”
Well… it is a great idea… if some Governors had any true belief in what their actual jobs were. Who knew that people would elect Satan incarnate across the nation?
"Who knew that people would elect Satan incarnate across the nation? "
I think Boss Satan is at his headquarters in hell, with his minions fanning out across the land.
Ballot: Satan Minion (R)
They were just tired of always electing the lesser of two evils.
Here's hoping he doesn't get rid of the picture of Tommy Thompson in the attic that gets more bloated every time the man eats a bratwurst.
The eagle, a bird of prey that feeds off the very young, old, and infirm, is a 100% perfect symbol for the present Wisconsin government.
How can you have your pudding when you won't eat the Koch?
he's busing all the poor and brown kids out of the state even as we speak, so the painting isn't relevant any longer.
The children in that painting were obviously union members, duh.
I'm not sure why this is newsworthy? It's SOP for Repubicans to only care about children in the womb. Once they're born, If they get hungry or sick or a job, there's nothing we can do! It's all God's will and the market will decide. Welcome to GOP Jeebus's World kids.
The linked story states that the painting will be reinstalled in a Milwaukee library where, according to a Walker shill, "more people will see it."
We should probably expect an announcement that Wisconsin will de-fund its libraries as an "austerity measure" later in the week.
And they will sell off their art collections first.
His spokesman has a certain verve, yes.
Kill the Poor – J. Biafra
“I guess that was a conversation Governor Walker did not want to have.”
Walker only talks to the Koch brothers and people who have made generous campaign donations.
"Don't ever speak to me directly, and thanks anyway"
Perhaps if Mr. Lenz were to re-paint the picture with the children wearing thrift shop cast-off clothing?
Would that be more acceptable to you, Governor Hates-kids?
Eh, crap, you beat me to it. Here, have an up-fist.
Right back atcha.
A true follower of Senior Matriarch Babs Bush: "Why would I want to have those kind of pictures in my beautiful mind?" A true American version of the venerable British Upper-Class Twit.
Those kids got a pretty good deal.
Exactly!
The Republican Party: Feeding the Poor into the Woodchipper for FreeDum since 1968.
They make good mulch. Don't ask how I know that.
Scorch marks? On a brittle black bit of charcoal?
Wow – I bet the kids depicted in that painting are feeling *really* good about themselves right now.
Relax.
They're just cripples.
also, Wisconsites are pesky. Walkerville is back. http://tinyurl.com/44ebes3
Disadvantaged children are icky, after all, who can blame him?
Today, etc etc…
I commented in an earlier, unconnected thread about these Republican governors.
Did they all attend a special governors' conference on removing all art work that doesn't portray grateful citizens lining up to give blowjobs to corporate CEOs? And if they don't have such a picture, how long until one of these constituent-hating assholes commissions one to show their gratitude to their corporate masters?
Gee, let's see what Kasich, Snyder and Scott do to enhance the cultural milieu of their respective states.
Don't forget Paul Le Page (suspiciously Surrender Monkey, that) in Maine.
Isn't he the turd that removed the labor mural and re-named all those conference rooms? (Can't have a labor department conference room named after the first female Labor Secretary, you know, the one that prior to that appointment fought for worker rights after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.)
And so, so much more:
Frances perkins: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Perkins
Not a one of these cretins would have been qualified to tie her shoelaces.
Brian Sandoval, here in NV, isn't very good at it, but he is a true believer, having given up a lifetime federal judgeship in order to run. You gotta know there's a big payback for these assholes when their job of eviscerating the already hollowed-out shell of middle-class USAmerica has been accomplished…
It's a win-win: going Full Stalin & taking down pro-humanity public art really locks up that sociopathic misanthrope demographic, & if the next guy puts it back up they can baaaaaw about the "waste" of taxpayers' precious $$$$$.
The irony, I suppose, is Walker is from Milwaukee (county of…, at least). But, that was only for reasons of political expedience. He's an out-stater thru-&-thru, & I bet he kisses the ground every day, thanking his lucky stars to be out of that fake 'Sconsin hellhole.
Get outside the 414, & the whole state has this attitude, too. It's not a left or right thing; it's a white thing.
Your move Rick Scott.
Scorch? Hmm, can you scorch something that does not exist?
I'm gonna give Alvin Greene a call on this one.
I'm surprised it isn't a painting of the Koch's giving to Wisconsinites right in the ass – without the reacharound.
The eagle thing is just temporary while he decides between hanging a dreadful 1907 watercolor by a talentless, obscure painter in Vienna and the piece he recently commissioned entitled, "Strangled by the Invisible Hand."
Voldemort?
Katie Couric?
And while we're at it, no more goddam Little Orphan Annie in the funny pages! MAKE IT SO!
Already happened; the strip was canceled almost a year ago, the last one ran 6/13/2010.
Fucking republicans.
Arf!
If one could read a person's IQ in their eyes (and I can), this joker would be eligible for his own parking space at the Special Olympics. He's already got a forehead the size of a Ford Excursion windshield. Add a little drool and we're good to go.
How appropriate. A teabaggin' Koch sucker removes a picture honoring society's most fragile and vulnerable citizens and replaces it with a blood thirsty, carnivorous predator.
Duh. They were wearing new clothes instead of used goodwill 3-for-a-dollar buys with stains from another child on them, like all poor and non-white children should.
I gotta say, I do appreciate it when someone actually answers a rhetorical question… incorrectly.
At least I always assumed "Who hates disadvantaged children?" was a rhetorical question, with the answer hopefully being "no one."
"Who wears short shorts?' remains unanswered, however.
Since the Republicans favor big government only when it comes to the most personal of choices, how about a piece of federal legislation that requires all GOP governors to go ahead and take "Dick" as their first name.
Since he'll never make it onto Mt. Rushmore, this would also be a fitting memorial to Dick Cheney.
what a total embarassement for Wiskies, or is it?
I would like to propose a series of paintings "Judgement of Cambyses" by Gerard David – this particular frame shows a corrupt official being flayed alive and in the background (after the flaying) his skin then being draped on the governor's (well, judge's) chair as a warning or "incentive" to future decisions
http://www.wga.hu/art/d/david/1/cambyse2.jpg
I wonder who his model was.
Must have had a pretty high threshold for pain, eh wot?
" 'This seems symbolic,' said Lenz, referring to Walker's proposed cuts in state funding for Milwaukee schools and city and county services, something he said would have a disproportionate impact on low-income youngsters. 'You would think we could all agree on the need to support the hopes and dreams of children.'
A spokesman for the governor dismissed the criticism.
'Not true,' said Walker's press secretary Cullen Werwie."
Clearly.
his wife's maiden name is tarantino.
coincidence?
Are you suggesting that Gov. Headbinder's garage has a sign on it that says, "Dead N***** Storage"?
You got to love the irony of the Eagle. That mofo has been on the endangered species act for 40 years! The Bald Eagle has to be one of the biggest welfare queens ever!
This is the picture that Scott Walker watned to put up, but he couldn't find a copy:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://babyja...
Yeesh. What a genius move when your political optics are already a cross between Himmler & Charlie Manson … someone's mother plainly believed that tequila is a vitamin throughout all three trimesters.
Yay! My turn:
Do you know who else couldn't bear to look in the eyes of the children his policies were killing?
Herod?
Louis XVI ?
John Wayne Gacy?
While many Republicans emulate Ayn Rand, Scott Walker has this great literary figure as his inspiration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhC_JJwlep0
Eagle personhood.
Mmmmm…Wild Turkey.
Not shot on sight? I thought that was the preferred Red State greeting for any stranger who wanders into your house.
"If I wanted to look at poor people, rest assured I would do so through a powerful telescope."
– Montgomery Burns
I can hardly wait for the Christmas in Wisconsin celebration, when the highlight of the festivities will be Gov. Pinhead throwing a starving puppy with an injured paw into the bitter cold and snow.
If only one of the kids in the picture had been Trig.
The squinty-eyed, badger-looking motherfucker would drown said disadvantage children along the shores of Lake Michigan if he thought it'd save the state a few pennies and be advantages to his political image, the bastard.
Comments on this entry are closed.