Walker Is Still Making Excuses For Presidential Bid Failure

Scott Walker is traveling the state, granting New Year interview in advance of his State of the State speech and laying the ground work for another run for governor. This, in itself, is not surprising or unusual. However, what does stand out is that Walker is only granting interviews only to TV reporters and is passing on any interviews with the reporters from newspapers.

The reason for this is pretty clear. With TV reporters, they don't have the time to fact check anything he says and he is able to get away with his lies, hypocrisy and false spin.

For example, on January 8th, Walker did an interview with Alex Hagan of WGBA:

In this interview, Walker blamed the failure of his presidential bid on the national media and Donald Trump:

Walker hasn't been very outspoken about his campaign since he suspended it, but now he says he's moving past that point and looking towards a possible third term as governor.

Governor Scott Walker says nothing has changed since suspending his campaign in September.

“There just wasn't a pathway to reach the nomination.”

Walker blames his drop out to the obsession over Donald Trump and not paying attention to the real issues.

“Nationally not the local media here in Wisconsin, but nationally the media was consumed with Donald Trump."

The gentle reader should note that there were no follow up questions, such as about his multiple gaffes, his spending money like a drunken Republican lobbyist or that Wisconsin is failing under his leadership.

Nor were there any follow up questions in the interview he gave just the day before with Charles Benson of WTMJ when Walker made the most outrageous excuse yet:

Benson: Do you think Trump's surge doomed your campaign?

Walker: Oh there's so many different factors when you look at a campaign, the bottom line is we didn't see a pathway to the nomination.

Walker: One of the retrospective things is I would advise anyone who is a Governor to know to run for president at the same time they are governor because - I short-changed my campaign. There are things I needed to do to be a better candidate for President that was able to do because of attention and focus on being the governor

Benson: Some might say you short-changed being governor?

Walker: They may say that but they give no example of it.

Benson: The poll numbers might suggest they didn't like you were spending that much time doing it.

Walker: Yeah but I say - our opponent, they said it, but they couldn't give an example of anything.

Did you get that? Walker says his presidential bid failed because he spent too much time being the governor.

But just how much time did he spend governing instead of campaigning? Not a helluva lot:

Gov. Scott Walker spent an average of less than one hour per day doing state business during his short-lived presidential campaign, according to records released to FOX6 News.

Over his 71-day campaign, Walker's official monthly calendars include 57 hours of state business, or an average of 48 minutes per day. Many days, the governor's only Wisconsin-related agenda item was a brief morning teleconference with his staff.

Walker's office released the records to news outlets late Friday afternoon, when few people would be paying attention to them.

In contrast, Walker blocked off 809 hours over the same time period for other purposes, an average of 11 hours and 24 minutes per day. The calendars note it as "hold time" -- often from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. during the presidential campaign.

Walker's office didn't provide details on the governor's schedule during those times, although the times matched up with the governor's campaign schedule.

The report goes on to say that Walker's time governing went from 48 minutes a day to about five hours a day when after dropped out of the race. Not that you could prove it by anyone in Wisconsin.

But I don't know what is more astounding and scary - that Walker is starting to hint at running for a third term or that there are people foolish enough to support him.

Walker Is About To Outdo Himself

Thanks to Scott Walker's policies and budgets, Wisconsin is lagging behind every state in the Midwest, and most of the nation, in job creation and wage increases. Things are so bad that Walker has been trying to rewrite his own job creation history.

Now that Walker has passed right to work (for less) legislation and is about to devastate the state with the worst budget ever, he might want to get a bigger pencil with a really big eraser for another rewrite as he is about to break his own record for layoffs in one year:

By the end of last week Wisconsin employers had already notified the Department of Workforce Development (DWD) of 3,543 planned layoffs, putting the state on pace to eclipse 10,000 in 2015.

That would be the highest number of layoffs announced in Wisconsin since 2011, when Gov. Scott Walker first took office. The total number of layoff notifications topped 9,000 that year.

By comparison, employers notified the state of 6,511 layoffs in 2012, 7,029 in 2013 and just 6,186 layoffs in 2014. The state records the notifications on the date when they are informed about the layoffs, which can then sometimes take effect over the course of a year or several years afterwards.

Many of the 2015 layoffs will impact hundreds of employees here in South Central Wisconsin. Last week alone, 93 employees at the Eaton Corp. plant in Watertown and 119 workers at McCain Foods in Fort Atkinson were told they will be out of a job by the end of the year.

"I just think our economic climate is not very healthy here," said Rep. Deb Kolste (D-Janesville), who sits on the Assembly Committee on Workforce Development.

Rep. Kolste said both workers and employers are feeling the pinch of the state's economic woes.

"We haven't created an environment where there's been robust wage growth and we are a consumer nation and if people aren't spending money - then we don't have the job growth," said Rep. Kolste.

And just think - he wants to repeat this level of "success" nationally.

Scott Walker's Anemic Job Numbers

Todd Milewski at Cap Times has the final tally for jobs created under Scott Walker's first term.  Needless to say, he did not reach his goal of 250,000 jobs:

It has been apparent for some time that Wisconsin was not going to reach the 250,000 new private sector jobs that Gov. Scott Walker pledged in his 2010 campaign.

Jobs figures for January that were released Tuesday complete the cycle on Walker's first term and shows how far the state fell short.

Wisconsin reported 2,460,000 private-sector jobs in preliminary, seasonally adjusted estimates for January, a gain of 137,400 over January 2011.

That's just under 55 percent of the way to Walker's goal.

I would argue that Walker's job numbers aren't even that good.

If you add up the jobs that were created in the first six months of Walker's terms, which were created before any of Walker's policies or his budget kicked in, it comes to about 23,000. These are the jobs that were created thanks to the the policies and budget of Jim Doyle.

So in reality, Walker created only about 114,000 jobs, or about 46% of his goal.

But even giving the benefit of the doubt to Walker and going with Milewski's numbers, Wisconsin still lagged far behind the rest of the Midwest and behind the nation:

There is no way an honest person could argue that Walker's agenda is working, because it is undeniably not.

Wisconsin Loses Jobs To Minnesota Due To RTW

While Scott Walker and the other Teapublicans were busy pandering to their corporate overlords by rushing through so-called "Right to Work" legislation, Minnesota Republicans were leveraging this to their advantage by trying to get companies to relocate to their state.

It didn't take long for Walker's folly to work to their advantage:

A Wisconsin business owner upset over enactment of a right-to-work law and other policies says he is expanding in Minnesota because the economic policies there are more conducive for his operation.

James Hoffman, president of Hoffman Construction in Black River Falls, said Monday that he was accelerating plans to expand an office in Lakeville, Minnesota, that currently has two full-time employees.

Hoffman testified against the right-to-work bill that passed the Wisconsin Legislature last week and that Gov. Scott Walker signed on Monday.

Hoffman says he worries that the law will cost his business money and he believes Minnesota's proposal to increase spending on transportation projects that his highway construction business could bid on would be good for his operation.

Minnesota has been beating Wisconsin in almost every economic measure for the past few years. It's easy to understand when one considers that they have two governors - their own and Walker - working to help them out.

The Walker Agenda Is Still Working! Part CCXXXIX

Even as Scott Walker gave his presidential campaign kick off State of the State speech, telling us how wonderful things are under his regime, the truth keeps coming out that his agenda is not working:

Great American Cookies left Wausau Center mall this weekend, with little word to anyone, even its employees.

"Everything was there Saturday, then Sunday it was gone," said Samantha Cox, manager at Wausau Center's Biggby Coffee, located near the cookie shop. She said people throughout the day Sunday came to ask her what happened, and she learned from employees that they didn't expect the closure.

The grate is pulled across the store front and all the signs have been removed.

The abrupt closure of Great American Cookies comes on the heels of an announcement late last week that Deb Shops will soon close its doors in Wausau, along with the rest of the retailer's roughly 287 stores.

Mall officials are investigating the departure of Great American Cookies.

"He (the owner) closed, but we're not sure — we're trying to get in touch with (the owner)," said Wausau Center General Manager Kirk Kamke about Great American Cookies.

This store closing goes along with the closing of three other stores in the mall - Deb Shops, JCPenney and The Tea Shop.

These stores are just the latest victims of Walker's economy, in which he has taken billions of dollars out of the economy and directly into the pockets of companies and CEOs who have contributed to his campaign.

And with RTW (Rob The Workers) legislation pending, it's only going to get worse as more money is siphoned out of our economy and people are able to afford even less.

Boss Abele Has Another Really Bad Election Night

Chris Abele used to think he was a major power player and had set his aim on increasing his sphere of influence - so much so that he had started to refer to himself as Boss Abele.

Then the August primaries came and the Abele Party got creamed.  The two Democrats that Abele supported - Jon Richards and Chris Moews - failed to make it through the primaries.  His two hand-picked candidates - Dan Adams and Tia Torhorst - fared even worse.

Just as the wounds from that butt-kicking were finally healing, the general election comes along and kicks Boss Abele's butt again.

Boss Abele went all in with trying to buy influence by giving tens of thousands of dollars to Mary Burke's campaign.  Lord only knows how much more money he flooded into the race in other ways.

Yet Burke lost despite his large donations - or maybe partly because of them.  It probably didn't help that Abele refused to release the Walkergate emails until it was too late to do any good.

Adding to Abele's bad election night was the fact that the Move to Amend referendum, which he actively fought to stop - to the point of trying to illegally charge private citizens to have it put on the ballot - passed with a 70-30% landslide

Abele's misery didn't end there.

While the county administrator referendum did not pass, it showed an amazing amount of people that are so upset with his power grab and plutocratic schemes that they were willing to consider making real reforms to county government.

Boyd McCamish, Executive Director for AFSCME District Council 48, issued the following press release which describes what the results mean:

A campaign to eliminate the office of Milwaukee County Executive garnered surprisingly strong support in Tuesday’s election, a slap in the face to the current occupant of that office.

More than 134,000 Milwaukee County voters, or 44% of the electorate, voted to replace the County Executive with a professional county administrator.

“This is a stunning repudiation of the high-handed regime of County Executive Chris Abele,” said Boyd McCamish, executive director of AFSCME Council 48.

“A lot of people in this community realize Abele’s efforts to concentrate power in his office and hobble the county board through Act 14 have really hurt our local democracy,” McCamish said.

Abele’s efforts to ram through his budget and stifle public participation in the process are not sitting will with county citizens.

“This is a clear vote of no confidence for Chris Abele. When so many people want to do away with the office you occupy, there’s no way to sugarcoat the fact the public is really unhappy with the way you approach your job,” McCamish said.

Nope, not a good night at all for Boss Abele.

But at least he did have one victory come out of Tuesday. One of the candidates that he supports and gave at least $1,000 to did win his race.

Sadly, that candidate is Rep. Joe Sanfelippo, a rabid and corrupt Teapublican who is bad news for the state, especially Milwaukee.

And to think that Abele wants to run for higher office.  With Democrats like him, who needs Republicans?

Proof That WISGOP Lives In The Past

So, I received this mailer on Saturday:

The first thing I noted was the irony of WISGOP, who tried to restrict early voting as much as possible, is now telling people to vote early.

The next thing I noticed the repeated mentions of Governor Jim Doyle. They do know that Doyle is not running, right?

But the thing that really cracked me up is that it was addressed to the previous resident or current owner.  Keep in mind that the previous resident hasn't lived here for over 15 years.

Not only are their policies from decades in the past, so are their mailing lists.

Your Education Tax Dollars At Work

I can't wait to see how the Walker idiots and paid propagandists try to spin this one:

Wisconsin taxpayers have paid about $139 million to private schools that ended up being barred from the state's voucher system for failing to meet requirements since 2004, according to a newspaper report.

State Department of Public Instruction data shows more than two-thirds of the 50 schools terminated from the state's voucher system in the last 10 years had stayed open for five years or less, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. They were all in Milwaukee.

Eleven schools, paid a total of $4.1 million, were terminated from the voucher program after just one year.

So, Walker and his friends stole nearly a billion dollars from our children's education fund and gave it to these fly by night operations that took the money and ran.

To add to the insult, the money that was siphoned off from our kids went to the education profiteers, who in turned used some of that money to pay the propagandists. It's a Mobius strip of corruption.

A Tale Of Twinned Cities

There has been many comparisons between Minnesota and the once and future great state of Wisconsin.  But I don't think any can be clearer than when one compares the difference for families in Duluth and Superior, as Monica Davey did  in this New York Times article.

The whole article is a must read, but here is one part that I found the most compelling:

Few places reveal the chasm like Duluth and Superior, where life along the border has come to look like a jarring, real-time experiment in which neighbors’ lives are suddenly heading along separate trajectories.

In Duluth, where Mr. and Ms. Smith live on a quiet cul-de-sac on a hill, there are signs of labor expansion. Minnesota lawmakers last year voted to grant in-home child care workers and personal attendants permission to form unions. But in Superior, where the Smiths have taught at the city’s high school for nearly two decades, labor’s power diminished precipitously after a decision by Wisconsin lawmakers, parts of which are still being contested in the courts, to solve a budget crunch by slashing bargaining rights for public-sector union workers and raising their shares of health and pension costs.

For the Smiths, the effects were instant. With more than $6,000 less in an already-lean annual family budget, Ms. Smith, a Spanish teacher who had worked part time to spend mornings with her children, had no choice but to move to full-time hours. “We just weren’t going to be able to make it,” she said.

Supervising their two children, Will, 12, and Ilee, 10, before and after school has become a juggling act. And with the union losing much of its ability to negotiate, Ms. Smith at one point even considered stopping her dues, even though her husband is on the union’s labor management committee. “I got to wondering,” Ms. Smith said, “what am I paying for?”

Mr. Smith, who teaches history, said that he adored his work and his students, but that he could not shake the sense that the rug had been pulled from under him. This month, he will start teaching students at a local university one night a week to make extra money and to get a glimpse at what else may be out there.

“It wasn’t until the last two and a half years where I really started wondering: Is this what I’m going to do?” Mr. Smith said. “Can I keep doing it? What else could I do?”

Back home in Duluth, the schools have wrestled with their own uncertainties in recent years — financial struggles, crowded classrooms and teacher layoffs. But school officials say they now feel optimistic about the year ahead, given an added levy approved in November by local voters, as well as about $4 million in new state funds expected.

“Up until just a very short time ago, these places were always way more similar than they were different,” Mr. Smith said. “Then this all came down, and they’ve gone their own ways.”

Overall, Minnesota is kicking our butts. The only naysayer was one businessman, but even he admitted that the taxes are not the only thing or even the biggest thing in his considerations of where to be in business.

Can anyone tell me why we should put up for getting the short end of the stick on every measurement?

The Walker Agenda Is Still Working! Part CC

We've already discussed what a train wreck Scott Walker's WEDC is.  They've lost track of tens of millions of dollars. And they took the money that they could find and used it for Badger game tickets and iPods.

Another problem with Walker's WEDC is that they were too careful about who they gave money to, such as Kestrel Aircraft which they thought would bring in 600 new jobs:

Governor Scott Walker today announced that Kestrel Aircraft Corporation will establish its manufacturing and headquarters in Superior, creating up to 600 new jobs.

“I am pleased with the aggressive package we have put forth in conjunction with strong local support to make this major job creation contribution to Superior,” said Governor Walker. “This relocation will be a huge boost to the Superior-area economy.”

Two state agencies, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation and the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Develop Authority, partnered with local officials to bring Kestrell’s expansion to Superior.

“This combined effort by Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, Wisconsin Housing Economic Development Authority, the city and county shows how serious we are about Wisconsin’s commitment to supporting business development and the creation of good paying jobs,” said Paul Jadin, CEO of the WEDC.

The WEDC will create an Enterprise Zone in Superior to provide $18 million in tax credits to Kestrel Aircraft Corporation. WEDC will provide a $2 million loan and is working with the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority (WHEDA) to secure a $2 million State Small Business Credit Initiative program loan. The repayment of the WEDC loan and eligibility of tax credits are based on the capital investment, worker training and job creation by the company.

WHEDA has committed to work with Kestrel to obtain a $30 million allocation of New Markets Tax Credits (NMTC) for the Superior project. NMTC is a U.S. Department of the Treasury program that assists businesses that locate and grow in qualified low-income areas.

“I am pleased that WHEDA is partnering with local officials and WEDC to use our new economic development tools including SSBCI,” said Wyman Winston, WHEDA Executive Director. “It is a testament to the people of Superior that Kestrel Aircraft is committed to build the next generation of commercial aircraft utilizing the know-how and talent available in the state of Wisconsin.”

They gave Kestrel $22 million to create up to 600 jobs.

So how did they do? Well, about as well as anything that Walker touches.

In fact, they did so poorly under the Walker agenda that it hurt workers 1,500 miles away:

Kestrel Aircraft Co., a major tenant at the former Brunswick Naval Air Station, continues to face funding problems, leading to problems with vendors and an inability to cover employee insurance.

Kestrel CEO Alan Klapmeier confirmed Wednesday that his startup company is behind on rent payments, has been late with paychecks and that Kestrel employees in Brunswick are currently without health, life and dental insurance after the company failed to pay premiums.

Kestrel employs about 40 people at Brunswick Landing, where Klapmeier announced in July 2010 that the company would invest $100 million to design and build a new turboprop single-engine plane. At the time, Klapmeier said it hoped to bring 300 jobs to the former Navy base, although he later said as many as 600 jobs could have been created.

But in October 2011, citing difficulties obtaining financing — including New Market Tax Credits — in Maine, Klapmeier announced that the company would manufacture the planes in Superior, Wis., although composite components of the planes would continue to be made in Brunswick. The company employs about 60 people in Superior.

Not only were the workers not getting paid, their insurance was cut off and vendors were cutting the company off due to not getting paid.

Trollidarity Squawkalong - Knot So Fast - With A Special Guest Troll!

For a while now, both Jeff and I have written about the pack of cyber-trolls that call themselves "Knot my Wisconsin."  These cowardly trolls have been trying to bully people around and has been consistently trying to put limits on people's right of free speech by filing false complaints and getting their Facebook accounts suspended.

I got my permit!

As one might imagine, people have been getting sick and tired of their boorish ways and have started fighting back.  The one way of countering these trolls which they hate the most is exposing them to the light of day.  And that has started to happen, both as a group and on individual trolls.

Now they have tried to come out into the real world, but this has not been very successful for them.  One might surmise that they have gotten so used to being trolls and feeling free to be as vulgar as they want to be behind their shrouds of anonymity and pseudonymity that they can no longer behave like humans and can not effectively cope in the real world.

Their latest venture was on Labor Day, when one of them took out an all day permit for the Capitol, following in the clawprints of fellow troll, David Blaska.  As one might suspect, this was a rather spectacular fail on their part.

Witnesses report that there was, at the most, fifteen people there at any given time, making the permit unnecessary.  And the people that did show up were the knotzies.  For the most part, they simply wandered around aimlessly and laid on things.  They did try to muster up for a few songs, but it turned out that not only could they not carry a tune, none of them could spell B-I-N-G-O or do the alphabet song without an adult to write it down.

Here are some photos taken of their adventures today:

Joanna Langworthy

Matt Lepperd in the blue t-shirt,
David Blaska in the baby puke yellow sweater

The crowd.  The woman in the gray shirt
was the only one to stand there all day.
Obviously, she had to save everyone's spot.

And it was no wonder that they had drawn such a crowd with their very special guest troll, er, star!

Yes, that is none other than squawker and Camp Randall ruffian Vicki McKenna, aka Vicki Pyzysnki.  Please note how she is proudly wearing her "Fear Knot" label.

I'm just wondering why David Blaska, McKenna or the Knotzies aren't bragging about this "event."  It's not really a secret that they are pathetic.

Addendum: Jeff Simpson has more on McThugga and her troll peer group.

Walker's Failure Now Due To Syria

Scott Walker has to be the unluckiest man alive.

He had promised us that he would create at least 250,000 jobs by the end of his first term.  Fifteen months
from the next election, he has created about one eighth of them.  And most of them were state fluff positions that he doled out to cronies and lobbyists' sons.

But now Walker is trying to back off of his promise.

The one thing Walker had in plenty was a list of excuses for his epic failure.  Some of his excuses include, but are not limited to:

• Unions
• Protesters
• The weather
• Taxes
• Regulations
• Former Governor Jim Doyle
• President Barack Obama
• Elections

And now he is adding one more to his list of excuses - Syria:

"The President, working with other leaders on a global basis, can try and put some pressure on to get things under control in the Middle East and provide stability there, because that will help our economy and if they don't it has an impact," Gov. Walker said. "We can do all the good possible, we can get the state back on the right track, but if there's instability around the world it will inevitably have an impact."

Coming soon will be blaming the man on the moon and purple unicorns.

Trees Falling In The Woods Get More Attention

We've all heard the Philosophy 101 question: "If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a noise?"

Now we have a Teapublican version of the same question:  "If two Teapublicans announce the reelection campaign of one of them, and no one is around to hear it, are they still lying?"

The failed South Carolina Governor Nikkki Haley announced her decision to run again.  Why not? If Appalachian Trail hiker Mark Sanford can go from complete disgrace to U.S. Congressman, it should be a shoe in for Haley.

To help her make her announcement, Scott Walker flew down there.  (Really, Walker was going for his own fund raiser, but don't tell Haley that.)  Maybe it was his job to hold her cue cards, because in a Teapublican's mind, this is more honorable than having a teleprompter.

To say they didn't draw a crowd would be an overstatement.  We are talking Charlie Sykes book tour bad.

Even when one of Haley's henchman had forced people out into the sweltering heat, things were still very, very bad:

The only thing I'm not sure on is whether one would say the abysmal turn out was despite Walker being there or because of it.

Scott Walker: Did I Say That?

Do you remember when Scott Walker was running for governor and he promised he would create 250,000 jobs in his first term?

Well, he wishes you would stop doing that.

On Monday, Walker went into weaselspeak mode to say that he didn't really mean that pledge to create all those jobs:

On Monday in Merrill, he carefully backed away from the specific number.

"My goal wasn't so much to hit a magic number as much as it was, in the four years before I took office, when I was campaigning, I saw that we lost over 133,000 jobs in the state. I said, 'it's really not about jobs, it's about real people, real jobs like those here, and more importantly, affecting real families all across the state,'" Walker said.

His goal wasn't so much to hit a magic number...

Hmmm. Why don't we review what he really said his goal was:



Oh! So his goal wasn't to hit a magic number. His goal was to exceed a magic number.

Scott Walker lied through his weasel teeth. Who'd have thunk it?!

Who, that is, that isn't part of the main stream media or a Teapublican that is part of the scheme.

Walker Takes Pyrrhic Victory Ride

One year ago this past Wednesday was the fateful recall election of Scott Walker.

Unfortunately, the billionaires, millionaires and corporate special interests were

able to buy the election for their figurehead, opening the door to more malfeasance and abuse of power.

Walker and company have been making the most of the situation, including a anniversary party and no less than two fundraising email blasts.

One of the emails was so kind as to remind us that the corporate media waited all the way to 8:49 p.m. to call the race for Walker, even though there were Milwaukeeans still standing in line waiting to vote.   Tom Barrett couldn't trot out fast enough to concede the election, as if he really didn't want to win it anyway.

But one has to wonder, just exactly what are Walker and his supporters are celebrating.

Walker said that when he won the recall, there would be no uncertainty and that the job creation would go through the roof.   Yet, in reality, Walker can claim only 62,000 jobs in the entire time he's been in office, and half of those came during the first six months when Governor Jim Doyle's budget and policies were still in effect.

Also under Walker's watch, Wisconsin dropped from 11th in job creation to 44th.  Someone really needs to get it through his bald spot that he's not doing this right at all.

Walker also likes to brag about getting a middling ranking in a survey of CEO's.  Funny thing is, you never see a survey of working class people.  I wonder why that would be.

Anyway, while Walker tries to brag about that, the fact is that Wisconsin is 49th in the county for economic activity, which has been an ongoing trend for him.

His other bragging points for the past year include:

• Allowing companies to ruin the environment;
• Cutting tens of thousands of people off of Badger Care and while gouging taxpayers;
• A quasi-private/public economic development body that has lost hundreds of millions of dollars and spent what they could find on iPads and gift cards;
• Further attacking women's rights;
• Further attacking veterans' rights;
• Raising taxes, especially on the poor and working classes;
• Further attacking workers' rights;
• Forcing taxpayers to support two school systems - one of which doesn't work and the other is public;
• Increase big government while decreasing representative government (in Milwaukee County, but sure to spread soon!)

But perhaps Walker's greatest feat in the last year was to raise enough money - nearly a million dollars - to buy his way out of accountability for his illegal campaigning.  

So what are the Walker supporters and apologists celebrating?  The higher taxes?  The corruption?  The decreased services?  Maybe they are looking forward to the deaths that will stem from his sinister policies?

I suppose, for the right wingers, it doesn't matter why they're celebrating, as long as they keep serving the Kool Ade.  

Wisconsin State Fair, Now With Illinois Cream Puffs!

When one thinks of the Wisconsin State Fair, there are some traditional things that come to mind automatically:

• The farm animals
• Fried cheese curds
• Herb Kohl's milk stand
• The midway
• Getting a baked potato
• The music
• Racing pigs

One of the most iconic things connected to the Wisconsin State Fair are the cream puffs.

They are so iconic that local TV and radio stations will use them as promotional

tie ins.  Each year, the Fair sells hundreds of thousands of cream puffs during its ten day run.

So now with just two months to go, we find that Scott Walker, who has ruined so many of the things that used to make this state great, has now taken away our cream puffs:

Illinois-based Prairie Farms is the new official cream supplier of the Wisconsin State Fair cream puffs.

The fair needed a new supplier after Golden Guernsey went out of business in January.

It is common knowledge that Scott Walker is an epic failure.

But to not even be able to find one dairy company from Wisconsin that could supply the cream is unbelievable.

But if the Wisconsin State Fair cream puffs are now from Illinois, I shudder to think what the Governor's Auction is going to look like.

U.S. Chamber Report Has A Deeper Meaning For Walker

Mike Ivey of The Cap Times reported that shortly after Scott Walker appeared before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Chamber issued a report that shows that the Walker agenda is not working (emphasis mine):

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker traveled to Washington, D.C., earlier this week for America’s Small Business Summit, an annual event hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

There, Walker appeared on a special panel titled “How to Lead Enterprising States,” joining with the governors of Maine and Pennsylvania.

“I participated in a good discussion about what we’ve done, and what we can continue to do, to help small businesses grow and thrive,” Walker said in summing up the trip for his weekly radio address.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Chamber, in a report released at the event, didn’t share Walker’s enthusiasm.

Its annual scorecard on state economies ranked Wisconsin 44th for overall economic performance and 50th — as in dead last — for short-term job growth as measured between September 2010 and November 2012. It also has Wisconsin 39th in “business climate” — on par with the state’s ranking under Gov. Jim Doyle.

Ivey further reports on how Wisconsin has lost over 1,000 jobs in the past couple of weeks. He also cites Jack Norman who points out that Act 10 is indeed not working and plays a large part in the downfall of the state's economy.

But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's report has much more significance than just the fact that Walker's agenda is an epic failure of Biblical proportions.

A year ago, I reported about another one of Walker's trips to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In that article, I informed the gentle reader of the Powell Memo, also know as the Powell Manifesto, which came to be the playbook of the Chamber:

In 1971, Lewis Powell, then a corporate lawyer and member of the boards of 11 corporations, wrote a memo to his friend Eugene Sydnor, Jr., the Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The memorandum was dated August 23, 1971, two months prior to Powell’s nomination by President Nixon to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Powell Memo did not become available to the public until long after his confirmation to the Court. It was leaked to Jack Anderson, a liberal syndicated columnist, who stirred interest in the document when he cited it as reason to doubt Powell’s legal objectivity. Anderson cautioned that Powell “might use his position on the Supreme Court to put his ideas into practice…in behalf of business interests.”

Though Powell’s memo was not the sole influence, the Chamber and corporate activists took his advice to heart and began building a powerful array of institutions designed to shift public attitudes and beliefs over the course of years and decades. The memo influenced or inspired the creation of the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Accuracy in Academe, and other powerful organizations. Their long-term focus began paying off handsomely in the 1980s, in coordination with the Reagan Administration’s “hands-off business” philosophy.

Most notable about these institutions was their focus on education, shifting values, and movement-building — a focus we share, though often with sharply contrasting goals.

The Powell memo covered a lot of ground. It not only set several ambitious goals but explained how these goals could be met. Some of the goals, which we are unfortunately seeing happening in real life today, include:

• Controlling education (see voucher school push);
• Controlling the media (see Faux News, squawk radio and the Kochs looking to buy several newspapers)
• Busting the unions (see Act 10 and Right to Work laws)
• Using the legal system (see buying the State Supreme Court and attack groups like Rick Esenberg's WILL)

Per Sourcewatch, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is:

U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a powerful business lobbying group in the United States that "has become a fully functional part of the partisan Republican machine" since CEO and president Thomas J. Donohue took office in 1997. Prior to Donohue's tenure, the Chamber "used to be a trade association that advocated in a bipartisan manner for narrowly tailored policies to benefit its members." The Chamber's 2010 budget is approximately $200 million, but as a trade organization, its donors can remain anonymous.

The Chamber claims on its website that its mission is to "advance human progress through an economic, political and social system based on individual freedom, incentive, initiative, opportunity, and responsibility." It describes itself as "the world's largest business federation representing more than 3 million businesses and organizations of every size, sector, and region."

Despite these claims, the New York Times reported in October 2010 that half of the Chamber's $140 million in contributions in 2008 came from just 45 big-money donors, many of whom enlisted the Chamber's help to fight political and public opinion battles on their behalf (such as opposing financial or healthcare reforms, or other regulations). The Chamber is "dominated by oil companies, pharmaceutical giants, automakers and other polluting industries," according to James Carter, executive director of the Green Chamber of Commerce.

To put it mildly, they are one of the big hitters in the corporate fascism world.

For Walker to get called out by them as badly as he did would be like an inept front line worker of a major company getting called on the carpet by the CEO.

It is like having the Archbishop address the wayward behaviors of an extremely wayward parishioner.

It is like a misbehaving child being called to the superintendent's office.

You get the idea.

Walker has done screwed up royally.

Oh, the Chamber or Commerce isn't really upset about the job losses.  They don't really care if us little people have jobs or not.

And they're not really upset about Walker's job performance.  He's been following their agenda almost to the letter.

Their problem with Walker is that they spent so much money on getting him to where he is and were grooming him for a run for the presidency, and he is turning out to be even more inept than Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan in showing that their austerity agenda is not only not working, but that it is detrimental to everything people hold dear.

In other words, Walker is a flop of a salesman and has set their cause backwards as much as anyone.

And Walker knows it too.

Why else do you think he blew off the NRA convention and everything else he was supposed to do this past weekend in order to work the crowd at the WISGOP convention, trying to sell things that no one is buying.  Things like the voucher program or that he is "making it easier to get a job."

Walker is in a tight place.

If he keeps up with his austerity measures, he knows that his odds of being reelected, much less being elected president, will drastically decrease.

On the other hand, if he doesn't keep up with the austerity measures, and sell them better than he has been, he will lose the funding and support from the Teapublican machines like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce he needed to win the governorship and to survive the recall.  And without that support, he will end up being a more laughable presidential candidate than Tommy Thompson or Michele Bachmann.

Stats! Boom! Baa!

Thanks to a tip by our own Jeff Simpson, we see some site called the Tea Party Perspective* which, with no sense of irony, cites an article by the Koch/Bradley MacIver (Anything But A) News Service about Scott Walker's jobs numbers:

The Senate Committee on Economic Development and Local

Government held a joint hearing with the Assembly Committee on Jobs, Economy and Mining on Tuesday to discuss economic indicators in Wisconsin.

Secretary Reggie Newson, Department of Workforce Development, and John Koskinen, Chief Economist for the Department of Revenue, both gave testimony that Wisconsin is heading in the right direction.

This is in contrast to two years ago where Wisconsin had lost over 150,000 jobs, Newson explained. “Based on all the indicators we look at, the state is moving in the right direction. We are adding jobs here in the state of Wisconsin.”

Yeah, because two Walker acolytes who jobs depend on trying to sell Walker's false bill of goods is sooooo reliable.

But the funnies start later in this piece of propaganda:

Secretary Newson explained that the numbers should be accurate and not be politicized. “That’s why we are here today, to make sure we provide accurate jobs information.” Newson was part of a group that urged BLS to revise the numbers to a third quarter benchmark because the original statistics were found to be inaccurate.

In January, BLS ranked Wisconsin 44th in private sector job growth, a statistic that Democrats like to bring up in opposition of Governor Walker’s policies. Representative Mary Williams (R-Medford) asked Koskinen if this ranking was still accurate with the revised numbers. Koskinen stated that, “I would no longer conclude it would be 44.”

Though Koskinen could not give an exact ranking based on the revised numbers, he explained the Wisconsin had some of the largest gains in the country over the previously reported numbers. The improvement in the revised data was better than all of Wisconsin’s neighboring states.

OK, just try to ignore the fact that Walker's people are saying that the jobs numbers shouldn't be politicized even as they are politicizing them. Go ahead. Just try.

They also failed to mention that all the other states were moved up by the same ratio, despite Koskinen's claims to the contrary, meaning we're still dead last in the Midwest.

I won't go into how even PolitiFact, which often tries to stretch all credibility to support Walker, isn't buying this bunch of malarkey that Walker's jobs are anything but pitiful.

But, c'mon people! We live in Fitzwalkerstan. We know the truth.

We know that Walker's agenda is not working and will never work. Despite what Walker's lackeys might say, the simple fact is that when it comes to job creation, Wisconsin is lagging behind the nation, every other state in the Midwest. Hell, we are worse than all but six other states in the nation.

To further exemplify just how bad things are here in Fitzwalkerstan, look at what Walker and his corporate media backers don't want you to see. Things like the January 2013 State Coincident Indexes, which shows the economic changes for three months:

As you can plainly see, the only states doing worse that Wisconsin is Maine and Alaska.

I do agree with Walker's puppet Koskinen on one thing - we're probably not still 44th.  We've probably dropped below that or soon will.

And Walker thinks he's got a snowball's chance in hell of being president with a record like this?


*I think we all can just imagine what the perspective of someone being teabagged would be.

Wisconsin Job Growth Rankings

It's not working.

Any questions?

Cry Squirrel And Release The Walker Job Numbers!

Whenever there is bad news on the horizon, Scott Walker will take something and hype the hell out of it before the bad news hits.  It's his way of controlling the message.  When the bad news hits, Walker will stick to his hyped up talking point until people forget about it or until the next disaster strikes.

He does it so often, we should have seen it coming this week.

Just days ago, Walker came out hard with his jobs numbers.  There was no way to verify them and even if there was, they were meaningless until the national numbers and the other states' numbers were brought out.

Well, those numbers are out and, yup, they are bad:

Days after state officials cheered a revision to the federal jobs estimates, those same numbers are showing Wisconsin still near the bottom in its slow recovery from the recession — and heading in the wrong direction.

The Badger State ranks 44th nationally in job growth over the past two years and behind all neighboring states, according to updated figures released Monday from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The new numbers, based on the most accurate current measures available, show Wisconsin with an estimated 2,790,000 non-farm positions as of January 2013 — up 44,600 jobs or 1.6 percent since January 2011 when Gov. Scott Walker took office.

By comparison, Indiana ranked No. 9 with a 3.8 percent job growth rate over the past two years; Minnesota was No. 10 with 3.7 percent growth; Michigan was No. 12 at 3.6 percent; Iowa was No. 24 at 2.9 percent and Illinois No. 30 at 2.3 percent job growth.

[...]

he latest BLS figures show Wisconsin is actually losing ground compared to other states since the recession began in December 2007. Going back four years, the state actually ranks a more respectable 30th in job growth since then. Those numbers also suggest Wisconsin didn’t lose jobs as quickly as other states during the recession but is now adding them more slowly.

As Chris Walker (no relation) points out, Scott Walker is running out of excuses.

He can't blame the recalls, the presidential elections, sunspots, elbow straws or anyone or anything else.

This is all on him and his failed agenda of attacking the working class in favor of the corporations and the wealthy.

There is no uncertainty.

There is only the certainty that Walker is an abysmal failure. If anyone says otherwise, they are either a liar or a damned fool.

Well, there are two uncertainties.

There is the uncertainty of whether the state will survive whatever time he remains in office and whether it can recover from the damage he has already caused.