Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Scott Walker Dances for Dixie

Scott Walker Dances for Dixie

"So it is a sad spectacle to see Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker taking money from the president of the "Council of Conservative Citizens,” a white supremacist group that grew out of the White Citizens Councils and is credited with radicalizing the man who massacred nine parishioners in the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The Council's president, Earl Holt III, donated $3,500 to Walker's 2012 recall campaign and 2014 reelection effort, and has given thousands more to other leading GOP presidential candidates, despite numerous political controversies that have brought down politicians as prominent as U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott.

The group was a virtual cheering squad for many of Walker's policies. Holt praised Walker online, and a website affiliated with the Council, Occidental Dissent, closely followed Walker's 2012 recall election. The site lauded Walker and criticized unions like SEIU for having "aligned themselves with blacks and hispanics." In one post titled Scott Walker Goes Racial, the outlet celebrated Walker's last-minute campaign ads that conjured the menace of inner-city crime to attack his opponent, Tom Barrett, the mayor of Wisconsin's largest and most diverse city, Milwaukee."