Posted on 06/07/2015 11:21:28 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
MADISON, Wis. — Less than a week after he was elected governor of Wisconsin in 2010, Scott Walker went to Milwaukee at the invitation of his political patron, Michael W. Grebe.
Mr. Grebe was Mr. Walker’s campaign chairman. He was also president of the Bradley Foundation, a leading source of ideas and financing for American conservatives. And the bankers, industrialists and public intellectuals on the foundation’s board wanted to honor the state’s next governor over dinner at Bacchus, a favorite restaurant of the city’s elite.
While the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation could not endorse candidates outright, it provided more than $2 million in grants to think tanks that implicitly championed Mr. Walker’s small-government platform, and $520,000 to Americans for Prosperity, a national group that held Tea Party rallies at which Mr. Walker spoke.
Addressing the assembled conservatives who had laid the groundwork for his transformation from county executive to governor, Mr. Walker did not disappoint, pledging to “go big and go bold” in office. In the months that followed, he would deliver on that promise, breaking Wisconsin’s public employee unions in a bitter battle, surviving a recall effort led by angry Democrats and making his fight the centerpiece of an as-yet-unannounced presidential campaign.
More than any of his potential rivals for the White House, Mr. Walker, 47, is a product of a loose network of conservative donors, think tanks and talk radio hosts who have spent years preparing the road for a politician who could successfully present their arguments for small government to a broader constituency....
....That focus has intensified under Mr. Grebe, a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran...was general counsel of the Republican National Committee and a Wisconsin power broker for presidential candidates, including as state chairman for Ronald Reagan’s re-election campaign in 1984...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Probably has to do with most unions being organized crime extorting whatever they’re after that day.
Besides unions, what are Walker’s position on other issues? I don’t know anything else he believes in.
Nov 19, 2011 - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
“............Michael W. Grebe, president and chief executive of the foundation, said there’s nothing secretive about his organization. Rather, Grebe likened the Bradley Foundation to the 1960s Green Bay Packers, who ruled the football world with a fearsome ground game and a deceptively simple running play, the sweep.
“We’re going to run off tackle, right over there, and we’re telling you we’re going to run there and we’re going to knock you on your butt and carry the ball down the field,” Grebe said during an interview inside the foundation’s headquarters near downtown. “There are no surprises.”
Acting like a venture capital firm for ideas, the Bradley Foundation funds thinkers, doers and organizations tethered to conservative ideals of “limited, competent government,” free markets and a “vigorous national defense,” faithfully executing the will of the late manufacturing titans and brothers Lynde and Harry Bradley.
And make no mistake: Bradley Foundation-funded ideas, as well as political leaders who turn those ideas into action, have helped drive America’s conservative revolution over the past quarter-century.
All told, the Bradley Foundation dispersed more than $350 million in grants from 2001 to 2010 to hundreds of institutions, ranging from arts organizations and school choice groups in Wisconsin to prominent national policy organizations, a Journal Sentinel review shows.
“I think there is some level of understanding of the breadth of organizations and causes they’re involved in,” said Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha). “But I doubt many people would have any idea that they spent $350 million over the last 10 years.”
Aaron Dorfman, the executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, said the Bradley Foundation supplies “the intellectual justification for conservative causes.”
“They have been particularly skillful at funding the think tanks and university programs that provide this intellectual foundation for their policy positions.”
The list of major recipients reads like an all-star roster of conservative think tanks: millions of dollars directed to well-known groups such as the Hudson Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, and the Federalist Society - all trying to put their stamp on three branches of government........
[HUGE SNIP]
.....Having spent decades in the often rough-and-tumble world of politics, Grebe is accustomed to dealing with and overcoming criticism.
That’s because, Grebe said, the foundation is focused on the long term.
“We tend to have a thick skin here,” he said.”
http://www.ouramericanrevival.com/about/
Our American Revival believes that the government closest to the people is the most responsive and accountable to the people. We share the vision of our founders – that the powers of the federal government should be limited to those specified in the Constitution, and that federal overreach infringes on our American freedoms and values.
We will work with citizens and leaders across the country to promote policies that restore power to the states and their people. We will help lead a revival of the values that make our nation great, by highlighting ideas and policies that protect our shared American values while limiting the size and scope of government.
Our American Revival is already beginning in states across the nation, led by everyday Americans and their elected officials, who believe in the wisdom of our founders, and in the powerful example they set – one of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
The largest drivers of state budgets are Medicaid and welfare, education and personnel expenditures. But far too often, states have their hands tied by federal government overreach and micromanagement that blocks common sense solutions and reforms.
Our American Revival will focus on reforms that will take control from the federal government and big government special interests and give it back to hard-working taxpayers.
We will highlight the ideas and solutions coming from the states that would help Americans move from dependence on government to the independence and dignity that comes from work.
We will showcase successes and proposals that will help assure that every child in our nation has access to a great education.
And we will help put power back in the hands of the taxpayers by taking on the big government union bosses through collective bargaining and pension reforms.
http://www.ouramericanrevival.com/about/
Unions = Organized Crime
When I was a teenager, working a summer job, the union introduced itself to me. I could legally work 30 days without joining the union, but after that I had to pay their initiation fee, dues, etc. The bottom line? They would take a third of my income from a minimum wage job. I didn’t see that as a good deal.
I quit on day 30, took a different job starting the following Monday, but one covered by the same union, and figured I had another 30 days. Wrong. Two union goons stopped me after work on that first day of the new job, and threatened to break my arms if I didn’t quit. I quit, and I still hate unions with the passion they earned, a passion reserved for pure evil (Satan, communists, socialists, democrats, Obama voters, and pedophiles).
Head in sand alert
Walker on ethanol, March 7, 2015
“While I do not support the mandate, I do not have a problem with ethanol...”
“However, it is clear to me that a big government mandate is not the way to support the farmers of this state...”
“Central planning will not help our family farmers, protect our environment, or provide jobs.”
“The free enterprise system must drive innovation to relieve our dependence on foreign oil, not mandates from the state or federal government.”
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