Prank Call of the Year

This was mentioned in Justin's post below, but in case you have not heard, Governor Scott Walker of the cheesy state of Wisconsin (although it's not THE cheese, that's from California!) was prank called by a Mr. Murphy. Murphy called the governor pretending to be mega-rich guy David Koch. You can read the original post and hear the audio here.

I found this to be wonderful. Here's a quick breakdown of some of the parts that I found to be quite interesting, using the transcript that is provided on the original post:

The Senate majority leader had a great plan he told about this morning—he told the Senate Democrats about and he’s going to announce it later today, and that is: The Senate organization committee is going to meet and pass a rule that says if you don’t show up for two consecutive days on a session day—in the state Senate, the Senate chief clerk—it’s a little procedural thing here, but—can actually have your payroll stopped from being automatically deducted—

Koch: Beautiful.

Walker: —into your checking account and instead—you still get a check, but the check has to be personally picked up and he’s instructing them—which we just loved—to lock them in their desk on the floor of the state Senate.

The situation is this (as I understand it): the democrats in the Wisconsin state Senate have left in order to make it so they do not have enough members present to hold a vote (there are more Republicans, so they would undoubtedly win the vote if there were to be one). So one plan appears to be to force democrats to come to the Senate to pick up their paychecks, and then forcibly hold them at the capitol so they can hold a vote. I'm no lawyer, but isn't that kidnapping or something. It certainly sounds illegal.

Walker: I would be willing to sit down and talk to him, the assembly Democrat leader, plus the other two Republican leaders—talk, not negotiate and listen to what they have to say if they will in turn—but I’ll only do it if all 14 of them will come back and sit down in the state assembly…legally, we believe, once they’ve gone into session, they don’t physically have to be there. If they’re actually in session for that day, and they take a recess, the 19 Senate Republicans could then go into action and they’d have quorum…so we’re double checking that. If you heard I was going to talk to them that’s the only reason why. We’d only do it if they came back to the capital with all 14 of them.

Another wily trick by Walker and the Republicans. Once again, the Republicans have no interest in actually hearing what the Democrats (or anybody else) have to say. They just need them in the building so that they can pass whatever they want.

As the conversation progresses what really stands out to me is not anything in particular that Walker says (other than not caring that the protesters are out there and seeming to believe that the public is on his side - this man is delusional) but rather just how he reacts to (who he thinks is) David Koch. He is eager to please him and agree with everything he says. He is really far up that guy's asshole. It really just goes to show who is really running this country - the wealthy elite. It's not surprising at all to me, but it still saddens me to see this clear of evidence of it.

I encourage all of you to listen to the conversation yourselves and make your own opinions of it. I also encourage all of you to make more prank phone calls. Long live the Jerky Boys!

Pat is crazy.