Honesty

By Jeff Simpson

Scott Walker is still upset that Ryan Braun "lied to us as fans".

The Milwaukee Brewers' Ryan Braun won't be getting Gov. Scott Walker's endorsement, at least not any time soon.
Walker said he and his two sons, Matt and Alex, all big Brewers' fans, were disappointed and angry "that he lied to us as fans."
In a telephone interview Tuesday, the GOP governor said that "it was bad enough that he broke the rules, but the fact that he didn't immediately fess up to it, that he dragged it all out...It's not just what he did, it's that he strung us out for so long."

Which is very interesting, since WMC recently spent over $800,000 to flood the markets with this ad:




Scott Walker did not let Kurt Bauer do all of his lying for him, he even jumped in himself:

 Gov. Scott Walker announced in a press release Tuesday that Wisconsin is now ranked second in economic growth for the first time in the state’s history, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s coincident index.

While a second place rating is great....the problem is that Scott Walker is lying to us as Wisconsinites.  See it is a fairy tale and the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia made sure to let us know:

 Top officials with the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia are warning Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and others that they are misusing a monthly index produced by its top economists.
Walker in recent speeches has been touting figures from the “Philly Fed,” claiming they show Wisconsin’s economy as No. 2 in the nation. WMC has been using the same number in a series of advertising buys, thanking Walker for putting the state on the road to prosperity.
But officials with the Philly Fed, who have been following the situation in Wisconsin, issued a statement Friday saying it’s a misreading of their "Coincident Indexes" to try and compare one state to another.
They say the index — which is comprised of several different economic statistics including housing starts, unemployment claims and wages — isn’t designed as a ranking. The Fed does not calculate a ranking based on the index and never has.
Walker and WMC have also been quoting the Philly Fed’s “Leading Indicator," a 6-month forecasting of the Coincident Index for each state, to say Wisconsin’s economy is projected to show the second-largest improvement in the country.
“We do not consider state rankings based on the coincident and leading indexes to be valid,” says Paul Flora, Senior Economic Analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia in an email to the Cap Times.

The fact is Scott Walker's main promise of 250,000 as "the floor, not the ceiling" is one that has never had a chance to come true.  

Politifact lets us know there is no way he is going to reach it.    It is so bad that Walker's staff is trying to kill any realistic story about jobs in the press. 

While he has been a miserable failure at creating jobs in WI, Scott Walker has been successful at one thing - lying. 

 Scott Walker is the "most untruthful" Governor in the US.   

Instead of not voting for Scott Walker because he has been a mess for the WI economy, how about we vote Scott Walker out because he has no idea how to tell the truth?   

Scott Walker is caught in so many lies that he sets records and has not even had to call anyone to apologize..  

Let's hold the Governor of the State of Wisconsin to a higher standard than we hold the left fielder of the Brewers!  

The Walker Agenda Is Still Working! Part CLXXXIII

Dr. Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon turned teahadist evangelical preacher, was in Walkersha recently, as a guest of the Koch Brothers' Americans for Prosperity.  By all reports, he was to instill that old time corporate religion into the masses just in time for Scott Walker's election campaign.

The usual suspects and paid hacks sung his praises, but it took the corporate media* to give the tell on why he was here:

AFP-Wisconsin state director Luke Hilgemann said that during a private reception earlier Thursday Carson said he sees Wisconsin government as an example for the rest of the country to follow.

Well, that only goes to show that Carson, like the rest of the corporate controlled sheeple, has no clue as to what he is talking about.

Because even as Carson was giving his spiel to the gullible masses in Walkersha, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia was coming out with their quarterly reports.

The April 2013 State Coincident Indexes are out and they show that Wisconsin is one of the two states that has had a drop in economic activity:

Keep in mind what the state coincident indexes are:

The coincident indexes combine four state-level indicators to summarize current economic conditions in a single statistic. The four state-level variables in each coincident index are nonfarm payroll employment, average hours worked in manufacturing, the unemployment rate, and wage and salary disbursements deflated by the consumer price index (U.S. city average). The trend for each state’s index is set to the trend of its gross domestic product (GDP), so long-term growth in the state’s index matches long-term growth in its GDP.

In other words, Walker has continued his two year pattern of taking our state down the tubes.

But Walker wants to be reelected in 2014 and has aspirations of being President of the United States in 2016, so surely he'll do what it takes to turn the state around, right?

If anyone believes that, they are either getting paid to say that or they just haven't been paying attention to the budget process.

But the folks at the Federal Reserve Bank has been paying attention.  Their forecast for Wisconsin for the next six months isn't very promising at all:

Sadly, yes, the gentle reader is interpreting the map correctly.  Wisconsin is projected to keep having its economic nosedive.  We can't even laugh at Mississippi because they are projected to do better than us.

And the states that Walker likes to compare his record to - California and Illinois - are creaming us.

So if Walker, Carson or any of the other fools try to tell you that "It's working!", you'll know better.  And knowing is half the battle.

*Unsurprisingly, the same corporate media and paid political hacks who gushed all over Carson has willfully failed to mention the Federal Reserve Bank's reports.

Walker's Rose-Colored Glasses Just Popped Their Lenses

A couple of weeks ago, Scott Walker was taking credit for the tides that lift all boats, in claiming that the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia showed that Wisconsin was on an upward trend for the first time since his budget took effect. Of course, in order to fully celebrate the joyous news, one would have to ignore that the state is still far behind the rest of the nation in growth.

But what they heck, that's why Walker's supporters wear their rose-colored glasses, right? It helps block the truth from their eyes.

But things aren't as rosy in Wisconsin as he would have us believe.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia provides many statistics to give a comprehensive view of how each state is doing.  One of them is the Coincident Index, which is, per their website:

The coincident indexes combine four state-level indicators to summarize current economic conditions in a single statistic. The four state-level variables in each coincident index are nonfarm payroll employment, average hours worked in manufacturing, the unemployment rate, and wage and salary disbursements deflated by the consumer price index (U.S. city average). The trend for each state’s index is set to the trend of its gross domestic product (GDP), so long-term growth in the state’s index matches long-term growth in its GDP.

You can see how Wisconsin is doing at their webpage, but thanks to a friend of  Cog Dis, I can present you this chart which highlights Walker's economic "success:":

I'm sure Walker will be coming out with a statement regarding this, which will probably be to the effect of "Hey, at least we're not Alaska!"

Then he can pick up the shards of those rose-colored lenses that just popped out of his glasses.  He just might be qualified to do that much, but he has proven without a shadow of a doubt that he is not qualified to be governor.