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  1. #1
    Administrator Jean's Avatar
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    Honeymoon Over: Scott Walker Under Fire for New Open Borders Amnesty Advocate Staffer

    by Matthew Boyle
    16 Mar 2015
    Washington, DC
    419 comments

    Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker made another massive misstep on Monday, hiring Liz Mair of Mair Strategies to handle communications and social media for his campaign-in-waiting.

    Mair’s support for amnesty for illegal aliens, wide-open-borders immigration policies, and public advocacy for the Senate “Gang of Eight” amnesty bill is sure to dog Walker in Iowa, South Carolina, and other early presidential states.

    During the Senate Gang of Eight bill fight, Mair very publicly and very aggressively promoted the amnesty bill—pushing it to media and making the case for the need for it over and over again. She claims her advocacy was done out of the good of her heart, for free, because for religious reasons she believes in amnesty and open borders. But Mair wouldn’t answer who was paying her bills for her advocacy during the timeframe of the “Gang of Eight” bill in early 2013 through the end of the last Congress–when asked by Breitbart News if any specific tech companies or a select group of Wall Street billionaires were paying her.

    “We’re contractually barred from disclosing our clients,” Mair said.

    That could mean anyone—even foreign companies potentially—were paying her during the timeframe she was publicly advocating for the amnesty bill. While she didn’t have to disclose it to the public at the time now that she’s hitched to Walker the Wisconsin governor owns everything she said and did.

    Mair also insists that Walker has a distinctly different viewpoint on immigration from her public support for amnesty but that she does stand by her public support for comprehensive immigration reform–which Walker now says he doesn’t agree with.

    “I do [stand by everything I’ve said on immigration],” Mair told Breitbart News on Monday morning. “I’m also confident that Walker has a different view on it to me.”

    Steve Deace, a nationally syndicated conservative radio host based in Iowa, said in an interview with Breitbart News that Mair “is on the wrong side of three issues that are non-starters, non-negotiables for Iowa conservatives.”

    Deace said the issues that Mair is bringing into the Walker campaign are her support for amnesty, her support of same-sex marriage, and her support of abortion. “If you go to her website, she’s got her own little pro-killing apologetic she posts up there,” Deace said.

    “Those are bad enough but where this delves beyond just issue disagreement into amateur hour is the fact that while Scott Walker is having a debutante ball at the Iowa Freedom Summit hosted by Steve King—his big coming out party—she is on Twitter ripping the event and ripping Iowans, saying Iowans are ‘embarrassing’ that as soon as Iowa loses its first in the nation status the better we’ll all be, that we’re just a bunch of government dependents.

    “How do you not vet people? Did they not even look at her social media postings? That’s the stuff that’s killer, that stuff. There’s already local news headlines about it. That’s the stuff that loses you elections. It’s urinating in the face of voters and telling them it’s raining.”

    What Deace is referring to is a series of Tweets that Mair published as Walker gave his major speech on the main national stage is Des Moines that launched what’s become an extended honeymoon at the top of the polls. As her now boss shot to national prominence as a potential 2016 GOP contender and became a frontrunner in recent weeks alongside the establishment’s former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Mair was tweeting insults at Iowans.

    “In other news, I see Iowa is once again embarrassing itself, and the GOP, this morning. Thanks, guys,” Mair tweeted.

    A moment later, Mair added another quip: “The sooner we remove Iowa’s frontrunning status, the better off American politics and policy will be.”

    The Tweets were first flagged by the massively influential Des Moines Register after CNN’s Chris Moody reported this morning that Mair was hired as Walker’s digital director.

    Deace added that this severely damages Walker’s perception on the campaign trail in Iowa. “Especially if you’re trying to portray yourself as the blue collar guy who’ll roll up your sleeves and get things done, now your communications consultant is this sneering elitist,” Deace said. “I mean, give me a break.”

    Since that Iowa Freedom Summit speech, Walker has been largely protected from criticism by the national conservative media, and on many issues, he’s been given a pass. But now that he’s hiring people like Mair, that honeymoon seems to finally be coming to an end.

    There is chatter among others who are thinking about getting in the race that Walker can’t handle the spotlight on the national level for long. While he’s been good on union issues as a governor, presidential candidates need to have a well-rounded command of every issue—including ones they haven’t had to deal with yet. Meanwhile, the national liberal media has been trying to rough Walker up—as hit piece after hit piece ran in the Washington Post in recent weeks. Deace said that none of the narrative games from the liberal media trying to take him down or the conservative media trying to prop him up really matter in Iowa.

    “What is said in the national conservative media has almost zero—zip, zilch, nada—bearing on what the average Iowa caucus-goer thinks,” Deace said. “It doesn’t matter much who shills for Walker, or what other conservative media shills for Walker. It won’t really make a difference to the average Iowan. They’re going to make up their own mind on what they see.”

    Rick Wiley, Walker’s likely 2016 presidential campaign manager who’s currently serving as a senior adviser to Walker’s PAC Our American Revival, said in a statement to Breitbart News, when asked about Mair and Walker’s position on immigration, that Mair won’t have anything to do with policy matters. What Wiley is saying, essentially, is that Mair will continue to be employed—even though even Walker’s rival Bush fired a staffer for unseemly Tweets that were discovered after that staffer was hired.

    “Governor Walker is one of the most tested governors in the country through big, bold reforms,” Wiley said. “During his service there have been people around him that have agreed and disagreed with him, but he has always and will always follow his core guiding principles.

    “Liz Mair was brought on to Our American Revival as an online consultant, not as a policy adviser. Governor Walker has had very substantive conversations with Iowans on issues important to them and will continue this dialogue through Our American Revival.

    “With regard to ethanol, he has been clear he supports a phase out of the existing mandate, but believes we have to do it responsibly. On our broken immigration system, Governor Walker has said we can’t have a discussion about anything else until we have security at the borders.”

    Deace said this massive misstep on Walker’s part opens the door to a more conservative candidate like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), or Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal—or someone else—to step up into the void. While Mair did do some work for Paul years ago, she didn’t say these types of things as publicly and boldly as she did before getting hired by Walker. It also presents a prime opportunity, he said, for Walker’s coalition between elements of the establishment and the base to be split up.

    “I think yes, but because it’s a signal that Walker believes there’s too many conservatives in the race, he can’t win and that Jeb Bush is much weaker as the establishment frontrunner than the conservative field is, that he has a much better likelihood of putting his own current conservative support that he thinks he’s getting—and taking it for granted—and pairing it together with the splitting of Jeb Bush’s base,” Deace said when asked if Walker’s mistake opens the door for Cruz, Paul, Jindal, or someone else to step forward as the true alternative to Bush.

    “I think that’s their game plan. I think their plan is to destabilize Jeb Bush. He’s going to gamble that he can be like George W. Bush in 2000, that there’s enough conservatives to split people who want to win at all costs and they’ll set aside their warring factions to unify behind Walker.

    “I have got severe doubts, however, that that [Team Walker’s read] is an accurate assessment of the environment. The way Walker’s coalition is dealing with the establishment and conservatives is they’re barely married—they’re the couple that says they’re staying together for the kids. It’s not a long term arrangement. Whenever such an arrangement comes about, that means the man is really saying he’s waiting for someone prettier and the woman is really saying she’s waiting for someone kinder with a better job to show interest.”

    Deace added he thinks Walker is “presumptuous” because he’s “taking the conservative base for granted because of what he did in Wisconsin with the unions” and that the rest of the conservative field is “too strong” for Walker to be making such a miscalculation.

    Wiley and other Walker spokespersons have not answered several questions about the governor’s position on immigration. Specifically, everyone says the border must secured, but Walker’s team won’t answer any questions about whether the governor supports an increase in H1B visas, with all the scandals breaking out of Silicon Valley putting Americans out of work while replacing them with imported cheap foreign labor. There is also no answer on whether he supports any increase in legal immigration, which would jeopardize American jobs due to a surge in the labor supply.

    Walker’s team, which is comprised of several ex-Republican National Committee (RNC) staffers, also wouldn’t answer if the governor supports the so-called “autopsy” report released in 2013 by, among others, Henry Barbour—the RNC committeeman from Mississippi. Barbour’s and others’ work on the autopsy report called on Republicans to support amnesty for illegal aliens or be imperiled in future elections, but after Republicans party-wide abandoned amnesty—and began aggressively criticizing President Barack Obama for his then planned executive amnesty on the campaign trail in 2014, the GOP took over control of the U.S. Senate in a historic nine-seat swing.

    That Walker won’t weigh in on all of those matters is extraordinarily curious. It’s unclear if that’s a staff decision or a decision on his part, but it’s definitely possible staff is handling the decision to refuse to answer specific questions about immigration—and not the governor himself.

    While on Fox News Sunday a couple weeks ago, Walker actually laid out how he’s “changed” on immigration since previously supporting amnesty.

    “I don’t believe in amnesty,” Walker said while being questioned by Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace after CPAC. “And part of the reason why I made that a firm position is I look at the way that this president has mishandled that issue. I’m one of the governors that joined — I was one of the first governors that joined the lawsuit that has been successful, at least on this initial technicality. And I hope we prevail ultimately throughout the courts. And then going forward, I think the way you enforce it is not through amnesty.

    “I think the better approach is to enforce the laws and to give employers, job creators, the tools like E-Verify and other things, to make sure the law is being upheld going forward.”

    Later in the interview, after being pressed about previous pro-amnesty comments, Walker responded: “My view has changed. I’m flat out saying it. Candidates can say that. Sometimes they don’t.”

    “So, you’ve changed from 2013?” Wallace asked.

    “Absolutely. I look at the problems we’ve experienced for the last few years. I’ve talked to governors on the border and others out there,” Walker replied. “I’ve talked to people all across America. And the concerns I have is that we need to secure the border.

    “We ultimately need to put in place a system that works. A legal immigration system that works. And part of doing this is put the onus on employers, getting them E-Verify and tools to do that. But I don’t think you do it through amnesty.”

    Deace, the Iowa radio host, wonders whether Walker “should stop evolving on issues and just go flat out establishment,” because he’s no conservative anymore in his book.

    After Walker’s “change” on immigration, he hasn’t laid out much of a position on the issue at all. He hasn’t agreed to do any interviews, despite scores of requests from this reporter and others for one on the matter, and hasn’t laid out a vision on it. Deace said that hiring Mair means Walker doesn’t seem to have “changed” at all, even though he had an opportunity to do so.

    “When he did that, I told my audience I wouldn’t immediately accept that and I wouldn’t immediately dismiss it,” Deace said. “We all change our minds and there’s only one omniscient being in the history of the universe and none of us are him.

    “So what you want to see, for example, is what Bobby Jindal has done on Common Core. Like a lot of other cash-strapped Republican governors, the feds offered them free money in exchange for allegedly higher academic standards and they took it. Then once Bobby got a look at what Common Core really was, he changed his mind—and not only changed his mind but everywhere he goes around the country it’s one of the first things he discusses and he dissects to an audience.

    “That’s how you know someone has internalized the changing of their mind and not pandering to you but that they really have internalized it, it’s something they believe. Well, the first time you see Walker step out of his new evolution on amnesty is to hire someone who openly says on their own website that they’re proud to say they’re for amnesty.”

    http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...ho-mocks-iowa/
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  2. #2
    Senior Member Judy's Avatar
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    It's a strange situation when these candidates don't have a clear grasp of the immigration issue, the greatest threat to our national security. What it means to me is that they aren't engaged in the issues that affect our daily lives. Walker, Bush, Graham and others just don't get the importance of the issue because they don't get the importance of it to our jobs, wages, public spending, domestic tranquility, and so forth, which means they aren't engaged and haven't been engaged in what makes America tick.
    A Nation Without Borders Is Not A Nation - Ronald Reagan
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  3. #3
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    Scott Walker Campaign-in-Waiting Leaks Reporter Inquiries on New Pro-Amnesty Staffer’

    by Matthew Boyle
    17 Mar 2015
    Washington, DC

    Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign-in-waiting is now leaking reporter inquiries to other media outlets as Breitbart News pursued questions on the dual citizenship of new communications staffer Liz Mair.

    Mair, a supporter of open borders immigration, amnesty for illegal aliens and the Senate “Gang of Eight” bill from last Congress, has dual citizenship in both the United States and the United Kingdom. It doesn’t appear she was born with dual citizenship, meaning she seems to have sought out dual citizenship as an adult in another country after living most of her life as a U.S. citizen.

    “I am a dual US-UK citizen, and the NHS [National Health Service in the UK] was my primary source of health care for many, many years,” Mair wrote in a blog post where she, in part, criticized ObamaCare and other government-run healthcare programs. “One of the reasons I returned to the US was to get into a better health care system than the NHS. The NHS provides universal, fairly crappy care for free for many people, and at a higher cost than (IMO) is warranted for a number of people who don’t use it much, but pay for it through their taxes. Sorry to disappoint.”

    On another part of her website, she notes she was “born and raised” in the U.S. and got a graduate degree in the U.K.

    “Liz was born and raised in Seattle, Washington, and lived in the United Kingdom for ten years,” her bio on the website reads. “There, she earned an MA in International Relations from the University of St. Andrews and attended law school, ultimately practicing corporate law in the City of London for three years. Liz also holds a certificate in Political and Social Sciences from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris.”

    Breitbart News had asked Mair a pair of questions about her decision to attain dual citizenship. “1.) When did you get UK citizenship? What were the circumstances under which you obtained dual citizenship? You weren’t born with dual citizenship right?” And: “2.) Why wasn’t US citizenship good enough? Why did you seek out dual citizenship in the first place?”

    Since Mair hasn’t answered the questions—and has since refused to—it’s unclear whether she was born with dual citizenship or whether she sought it out as an adult after she moved to the U.K. later in life. This could complicate her situation with the Walker campaign, especially after scrutiny of her disdain for Iowans—which was exposed by the Des Moines Register on Monday—or her support of abortion, amnesty for illegal aliens and gay marriage already has.

    To make matters worse for the Walker campaign, Mair actually leaked the inquiry this reporter sent to her to another media outlet—an action that’s viewed as widely inappropriate and unacceptable for any campaign or communications professional.

    That email seeking comment was sent to Mair at 10:34 a.m. ET on Tuesday.

    At 10:49 a.m., Bloomberg Politics reporter Dave Weigel reached out to this reporter with an email headlined: “Are you writing about Mair’s dual citizenship?”

    “This is what I am hearing,” Weigel wrote in the body of the email. “She’s been a very public person, and I don’t think she’s ever concealed that.”

    Weigel’s right that she has been public and forthcoming about being a dual citizen—it’s on her website. That doesn’t mean it’s not a story in connection with her hiring by Walker, and since Walker is very seriously considering running for president every action he takes and every person he hires is going to come under scrutiny—especially since Walker is neck-and-neck in the polls with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

    George Rasley of Richard Viguerie’s ConservativeHQ wrote on Tuesday that Walker “has just put conservative support for his rising presidential campaign in jeopardy” by hiring Mair.

    “Governor Walker is new to national politics, but conservatives got the message loud and clear that Scott Walker may not be one of us, or at least that the inside-the-Beltway political class has already infiltrated his allegedly populist campaign, when he hired Liz Mair, who has made a point of attacking conservative Republicans at every opportunity, for a senior position in his campaign,” Rasley wrote.

    What’s more, Mair has even tweeted in recent weeks and months—before she was hired for the Walker Our American Revival PAC, his campaign in waiting—about how politically toxic this topic really is for her.

    “I am Scottish-American. But that’s also one of many reasons why I’d get my ass kicked if I ever ran for anything,” Mair wrote on Twitter on Feb. 26.

    Since this reporter hadn’t sent a separate and distinct inquiry to Walker’s communications director and press secretary, Kirsten Kukowski and AshLee Strong respectively, until 10:54 a.m., the only person who could have leaked the inquiry to Weigel was Mair herself.

    When confronted about the fact that she’s leaking reporter emails, Mair threatened to never read or respond to any emails from this reporter again.

    “This will be the last email from you I will read or reply to,” Mair wrote back when asked why she leaked the inquiry about her dual citizenship to Weigel—and potentially others.

    Kukowski and Strong haven’t responded when asked if they view leaking reporter inquiry emails as acceptable behavior and something they—as Walker campaign communications staffers who have both had a long history in political communications for major Republican figures—would personally approve of or engage in as a tactic.

    Kukowski worked for Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman Reince Priebus for years, and Strong similarly worked for Sen. John Thune (R-SD) for years. Both have been responsible Republican communications staffers for quite some time, and it’s extraordinarily curious that at this time they are standing by someone on their team that engages in the widely-considered-to-be-unacceptable tactic of leaking.

    The real story behind Mair here, however, is where Walker really stands on immigration.

    For the second straight day, Walker’s staff is refusing to answer basic questions about where the governor stands when it comes to several detailed areas of immigration policy. He said a few weeks ago that he “changed” on immigration, but he thus far hasn’t laid out his policy viewpoints. As nationally syndicated Iowa-based radio host Steve Deave noted in an interview with Breitbart News on Tuesday, the first move he made on immigration after saying he “changed” from his previous amnesty support is hiring the open borders advocate Mair.

    Walker’s staffers Kukowski and Strong haven’t answered whether Walker thinks there should be any increase in H1B visas to bring in cheap foreign high tech labor—or any other legal immigration increase—while American workers are struggling. They also haven’t answered whether Walker thinks Republicans should trust the Chamber of Commerce, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg’s lobbying outfit FWD.us, Sheldon Adelson, Bill Gates, or other open borders advocates when it comes to immigration policy, and they haven’t laid out, when asked, what type of immigration policy other than a secured border—which even the Democrats say they support—that Walker would support.

    If Walker’s going to make a bid for the White House—all the liberal media bashing of him aside—he’s going to have to have well thought positions on these issues rather than just rhetoric. Team Walker is refusing to answer those questions and more, and won’t let the governor do interviews about immigration policy. Moreover, if Walker wants to beat Bush–and then eventually Hillary Clinton or whatever Democrat wins their nomination if he wins the GOP nod–he needs to have a distinct policy on immigration that’s different from them. At this time, he has no such policy–or at least he clearly can’t articulate it since his staff is refusing any interviews on the matter.

    http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...l-citizenship/
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  4. #4
    Senior Member Judy's Avatar
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    This is a great article. And of course Mair has to go if he intends at all to run a serious race for the Presidential nomination on a Republican ballot. He of course is free to hire anyone he wants, but voters and donors are free to judge him by the company he keeps and the people he hires. Even if I supported him I wouldn't contribute knowing the money is funding the high flying lifestyle of someone who wants to bankrupt our country with illegal aliens and put American workers on the permanently unemployed list.

    And when you think about it, why of all the great people he could hire to communicate for him, would he hire someone like this? I think the answer is pretty simple. He's not engaged in what's important to the American people, he's not really against amnesty, and he has no serious intentions of doing anything about the illegal immigration problem.
    Last edited by Judy; 03-18-2015 at 01:35 AM.
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  5. #5
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    There Is No Difference Between Bush And Walker On Immigration

    Conn Carroll | Mar 18, 2015

    Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has run into a little bit of trouble on immigration again, this time forcing a communications aide off his staff after Democrats pushed out old tweets from the aide disparaging Rep. Steve King (R-IA), a well-known opponent of amnesty.

    "In other news, I see Iowa is once again embarrassing itself, and the GOP, this morning. Thanks, guys," the aide, Liz Mair tweeted, referring to King's January 24th Iowa Freedom Summit where Walker, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Carly Fiorina, and other possible Republican presidential candidates spoke.

    Walker's troubles with immigration began in January when opponents began circulating prior statements of his showing that Walker has endorsed both a "path to citizenship" generally and the Senate's Gang of 8 bill specifically.

    Walker has since tried to walk those positions back, telling Fox News Sunday's Chris Wallace on March 1st, "My view has changed, I’m flat-out saying it. Candidates can say that, sometimes they don’t."

    And Walker's view on immigration has changed. Here he is on immigration in July of 2013: "You hear some people talk about border security and a wall and all that. To me, I don't know that you need any of that if you had a better, saner way to let people into the country in the first place."

    And here is Walker in March 2015: "I've talked to people all across America. And the concerns I have is that we need to secure the border. We ultimately need to put in place a system that works. A legal immigration system that works. And part of doing this is put the onus on employers, getting them E-Verify and tools to do that."

    So Walker has shifted from believing a secure border wasn't really necessary to now believing that it is.

    But what about those illegal immigrants already here? What is Walker's position on that? Again, from March 1st:

    WALLACE: The question was, can you envision a world where if these people paid a penalty, that they would have a path to citizenship? And you said, sure, that makes sense.

    WALKER: I believe there's a way that you can do that. First and foremost, you've got to secure that border or none of these plans make any sense
    .

    (emphasis added) Notice the present tense. Walker still believes that illegal immigrants currently in the United States should be given a path to citizenship, but only if you secure the border first, which is a not uncommon Republican position on immigration.

    But how is it any different than Jeb Bush's position?

    Here is Jeb from March 13:

    It’s easy to say, ‘Well, anything you propose is amnesty,’ but that’s not a plan. That’s a sentiment, that’s not a plan. I think the best plan, the most realistic plan, the grown up plan, if you will, is once you control the border and you’re confident it’s not going to be another magnet, is to say, ‘Let’s let these folks achieve earned legal status where they work, where they come out of the shadows.’”

    So both Walker and Bush believe we should "secure"/"control" the border first (whatever that means), and then, only after that is accomplished, can we give legal status/citizenship to illegal immigrants currently in the United States.

    If there is any difference between Walker and Bush on immigration, I do not see it.

    http://townhall.com/tipsheet/conncar...ation-n1972560
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