The "Compassionate" Free Market

Christian Schneider, calumnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other corporate media propaganda sites, is struggling with what to do with himself ever since Scott Walker drove himself out of the presidential race even faster than most people had guessed.  Apparently, Schneider, has decided to take up shark jumping to fill his time.

In Sunday's paper, Schneider has his regular submission of bovine excretement in which he laments the phrase "compassionate conservatism." Schneider's faux outrage stems from the fact that Ohio Governor John Kasich accepted federal funding to expand Obamacare.

The horror! Making sure tens of thousands of vulnerable people get affordable health care coverage! How absolutely cold-blooded!

Ah, but Schneider was just warming up. He went on to actually try to argue that the free market system - aka plantation economics - is actually compassionate. No, really!

Actual conservatives already understand that their ideology is intrinsically compassionate.

It is compassionate, for instance, to allow parents to choose where and how their children are being educated, rather than sentencing them to failing government schools.

So, according to Schneider, instead of allowing kids to get a good education from the best teachers, it's more compassionate to send our children to private schools that close nine days into the school year, leaving families scrambling to get their kids into underfunded public schools.

Apparently, Republicans feel so much compassion for our children that they would go along with Chris Abele's scheme to privatize all the schools, regardless of the fact that the parents don't want it. What was that about free markets and choice?

Schneider continues along his flight of fancy with this:

It is compassionate to allow taxpayers to keep more of their own money to run their families as they see fit.

Hmm, my taxes went up by nearly 150% of what they were before Walker took over and installed his plantation economic agenda. And that's not even mentioning the tens of thousands of dollars that was cut from my take home pay. And let's not forget that the same economic agenda that Schneider is praising led Wisconsin to have the biggest drop in middle class families. Aren't you feeling all warm and tingly from all that compassion?
Then there's this:

It is compassionate to allow small businesses to be free of regulation and taxation so they can hire more employees and pay them better wages.

Ooh, we're already repeating ourselves here, but Wisconsinites, under the plantation economics agenda Schneider is pushing, is not better, hence that shrinking middle class. But hey, surely it's compassionate to allow companies like Menards to just dump hazardous wastes into our drinking water, right? Giving people cancer and other health problems is compassionate, right?

What says "I care about you" more than a wealthy CEO exploiting his workers by cutting their pay and benefits and making their worksites less safe?

Then Schneider gets to the best one yet:

And compassion isn't just economic. It is charitable to allow individuals to carry weapons to protect themselves if they feel they are in danger from an uncompassionate convict.

And if there aren't any uncompassionate convicts around, one could just shoot two year olds or revictimize victims that one is compassionately trying to help.

And to point out that homes with guns are actually less safe, well, that's just plain unfeeling and hard-hearted.

One shouldn't blame Schneider for being overly zealous in promoting the plantation economic agenda of his dark money overlords. I'm sure that Schneider, like his fallen hero Walker, simply cares too much.

Wisconsin's Race To The Bottom Not Fast Enough For Scott Fitzgerald

A few days ago, I pointed out how state Republicans thought that they had reached a compromise between Scott Walker's presidential aspirations and the greedy wants of their corporate masters by deciding to introduce a plantation economy in piecemeal fashion instead of one fell swoop.

Now, State Senator Scott Fitzgerald is again pushing to have a Rob The Workers bill passed in its entirety - at least when they are able to fill Glenn Grothman's seat.  I find it interesting that even though the Republicans hold the majority in the state senate, Fitzy isn't comfortable trying for it.  Obviously there is some dissension in the ranks.

Walker, who tried to delay any such bill, calling it a distraction, is now again voicing support for it.  Make no mistake about it, Walker has been for it all along, but he is worried about how the inevitable protests are going to hurt his image as he runs for president.

So why this revived push to send the state's economy completely over the cliff?

Aw, c'mon! We're talking Republicans so the answer is an easy one.

That's right! Money!

Fitzgerald’s latest comments came only hours after Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state’s largest business organization and a powerful influence on state spending and policy, released results of a poll it conducted that showed 69 percent of respondents supported a right-to-work law.

WMC’s steady drumbeat for passage of a right-to-work law is backed up by the group’s big spending to support Republican candidates in legislative and statewide elections. WMC has spent an estimated $18.4 million over the years mostly on negative ads to smear Democrats and support Republican candidates, including $700,000 to back Senate Republican incumbents and candidates in the 2011 and 2012 recall elections.

In addition to outside electioneering activities, WMC boasts a membership of 4,000 businesses from a wide range of special interest groups. Manufacturers and businesses contributed about $137,000 to Fitzgerald’s campaign between 2011 and July 2014.

During that time, Fitzgerald’s top individual contributors were Jere Fabick, Oconomowoc, owner of Fabco Engineering, $15,000; Paul Schierl, Green Bay, a retired paper industry executive and president of the Cornerstone Foundation, $6,000; and Daniel McKeithan, River Hills, chairman of Tamarack Petroleum, $5,250.

Well, the gentle reader knows that the Republicans' motivation is not to stimulate the economy or to help the citizens - and definitely not the workers, otherwise they wouldn't be pushing so hard for something that is known to be so detrimental:

However'[Dr. Robert] Bruno [a professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois] said those who do have jobs under a “right-to-work” system typically are paid less, and that hurts the economy.
“There is a significant loss in income to the state – in the billions of dollars – as a result of right-to-work laws lowering wages,” he said. “Of course, when those workers, those citizens, have less money to spend, then it becomes a drag on the overall economy.

Bruno said “right-to-work” laws also make people more reliant on services from the government, which has less money, because workers are paying lower income taxes.

Emily Twarog, an assistant professor of labor and employment relations at the U of I, said the evidence is clear from studies the university has done that “right-to-work” laws are not beneficial to workers.
“There’s really been no evidence in any other state where there’s right-to-work that demonstrates that right-to-work is beneficial to workers,” she said.

Bruno said “right-to-work” laws are good at weakening labor unions, and their ability to negotiate better wages and benefits for workers, as such laws lead to lower unionization rates.

Ironically, Scott Walker and the Republicans might end up biting the hand that feeds them if they pursue their folly of plantation economics.

A group called the Wisconsin Contractor Coalition has formed. The Coalition already has nearly 400 contractor companies from around the state in it and it continues to grow rapidly.  The Coalition opposes the Republican push for plantation economics.

Besides using Walker's argument that it is a distraction and that the results of such laws are not good at all, the Coalition also argues that it is an example of big government interfering with a private contract between a company and the unions.

They also point out that it will cost taxpayers much more because they would have to foot the bill for training and certification that the unions currently cover themselves without any government assistance.

In other words, when and if the Republicans pass this piece of offal, it will take money out of our wallets twice.  Once through the lower wages and again with the higher taxes.

With so much negative aspects to it, one has to wonder about those that would support such a maleficent piece of legislation.

Deanna Alexander Does It Again - Money Matters, Black Lives - Not So Much

Two days ago, I reported about a very disgusting and vile racist tweet made my Deanna Alexander, in which she mocked the last words spoken by Eric Garner, a black man who was choked to death by a New York cop:

To say that her racism set off a firestorm would be an understatement.

She has spent the last two days deleting comments off of her Facebook page and locking down her campaign Twitter account.  The only three other people I have seen do that are her good friends and benefactors - Scott Walker, David Clarke and Chris Abele.

Unfortunately for her, not all of her friends support her overt racism.

A friend of Cog Dis has shared these tweets made by Alexander, showing that while she might not think that black lives matter, she does care about one thing - money:

In other words, she is more concerned about businesses making money than she is about people making a living wage or the reason for the protests- another black man being unjustly killed by a white cop, something which has become epidemic across the country.

Adding insult to injury is the fact that Alexander opposes raising the minimum wage, much less making it a living wage, making her complaints hypocritical and hollow - much like her spirit.

The fact is that Alexander is an embarrassment to the Milwaukee County Board and to Milwaukee County in general.

If she had a shred of dignity or respectability, she would apologize and resign immediately.  Don't hold your breath for either of those things to happen, since she doesn't possess either of those qualities.

I again call on the Milwaukee County Board to censure Alexander for her overt racism and attempts to fan the flames of the racial tension that envelops our community.

In the meanwhile, you can contact Alexander and tell her you don't appreciate her racism and that it has no place in government. You can call her at 414-278-4259 or email her at deanna.alexander@milwaukeecountywi.gov.

Burke Vs. Walker: A Charitable Comparison

As most people already know, I am less than enthused about the gubernatorial election this year.  I don't find Mary Burke, the Democrat's hand-picked candidate to be satisfactory and all too much like Scott Walker for my taste.  As examples on why I am not so excited is that the two biggest points of discussion thus far has been which candidate has out-outsourced the other and to which businesses would be better to give the taxpayers' money.

That said, there are distinctive differences between the two.  Burke stands for more freedoms for the people,
including supporting marriage equality, women's rights, voters' rights and collective bargaining.  As we all know, Walker is opposed to equality of any sort, denying rights to gays, women, minorities and workers in both the private and public sector.

Another area of great difference is simply their personalities, as displayed through their attitudes and actions towards others, especially those in need.

It is well known that Burke is a multimillionaire.  But unlike Chris "Boss" Abele, who uses his vast fortune to consolidate power in his hands and attempt to build an empire, Burke actually took her money and time to do good for the community:

After working in that position for nine years, she got very involved in her volunteer work and decided to leave Trek and devote all of her time to her philanthropic efforts, which have a special focus on education.

She’s on the board of directors of the Burke Family Foundation, which has awarded grants to the Urban Ecology Center, the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra, First Stage and other organizations that focus on underserved kids’ education and closing the achievement gap.

While working at Trek, she also became a volunteer tutor at the Boys & Girls Club of Dane County, then served as chair of its board of directors and led a $6.2 million fundraising effort for a new facility. She developed AVID/TOPS, a college-prep program for students who wouldn’t have been helped otherwise. The program is close to her heart. Its first class of 85 just graduated and 90% are enrolled in post-secondary education.

Burke said she often thinks of one student, Daniel, who wanted to stay in the program so badly after his family moved that he took multiple buses across town to get to school and his job and stay involved in sports and the AVID/TOPS program.

“It was his dream to go to college and he knew how much this program was helping him,” Burke said. “He entered Edgewood College this fall, realizing his dream. There are a lot of kids out there like Daniel who have a dream and we need to make sure that we are supporting them in that dream so that they do learn how to set that vision for themselves and take responsibility for making that happen.”

When it comes to Scott Walker, it's a completely different story.

The only charity that I could find that Walker was involved in - not counting his crony capitalism and just plain cronyism - was Operation Freedom.

As the gentle reader surely remembers, Operation Freedom was the supposed charity fund for veterans and gave his blessing to his long time friend and campaign worker, Tim Russell, to raid the fund for Walker's campaign website and Russell's own peccadilloes.
their families that Walker had set up as a thinly-veiled campaign stunt.  Not only was Walker using Operation Freedom as a campaign stunt, but he apparently also

I would be remiss if I also did not mention one other prime example of Walker's idea of giving.  That would be the infamous Black Friday email he sent out telling people not to bother giving their children Christmas presents.  Instead, he thought people should take the money they would have spent on the gifts and just go ahead and give it to him.

The acts of charity which has been done or not done by Burke and Walker aren't enough in itself to decide to vote for.  What they do show is which one is more of a decent human being and less likely to govern through malfeasance.

Clearly, Burke wins this comparison hands down.

Save The Rich!

From the very talented Garfunkel and Oates (NSFW - language)

Shame On The Wauwatosa School Board!

Tonight the Wauwatosa School District board, the wealthiest school district in the Milwaukee area, voted to layoff almost half of its custodians and outsource their work.  

Approximately 35 family supporting jobs will be eliminated and replaced by poverty wage jobs provided by the contracted employer. The board made this decision based on an alleged “structural deficit”, despite the fact that the district has run budget surpluses for the past seven years averaging over $2.3 million dollars per year and have millions and millions of dollars squirreled away in the bank. 

Perhaps they are looking to give themselves and the superintendent big fat bonuses and raises to reward themselves on their "tough decision making?"

The two school board meetings at which the outsourcing proposal was discussed were packed to overflow and dozens of community comments were unanimous in their opposition to the outsourcing proposal. Nevertheless, the school board voted 5-2 in favor of the proposal to outsource the custodians’ work. 

Voting in favor of outsourcing were Mary Jo Randall, Sharon Muehlfeld,  Anne Fee, Kristy Casey, Michael Meier.

Please feel free to contact these people and ask them to reconsider their foolish and ill-considered decision.  You can find their contact information here.

Also please contact Wauwatosa School Superintendent Phil Ertl at 414-773-1000 Ext. 1010 or email him at ertlph@wauwatosa.k12.wi.us.

And if they choose not to listen to the people again, I hope the good people of Wauwatosa will remember this come election time.

Exploiting Our Society

"A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members." Mahatma Gandhi.

An article from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel discusses the shortage of agencies that do meals on wheels for the housebound in Milwaukee County.  The article points out that this will become an even greater problem as more baby boomers hit their golden years.

It is not happy news, but what makes me angry is the reason why there is this shortage - greed:

But providing those meals isn't profitable, and the number of places with such programs is shrinking.

Milwaukee-based Horizon Home Care & Hospice is one of the few places still delivering affordable meals to older adults in the county as a community service, said Jason Whittington, manager of volunteer services at Horizon. In recent years, several programs have closed or been absorbed by other organizations.

"The biggest reason is you lose money on it, frankly. Our client base is on a very strict budget, so what we charge customers is at cost," Whittington said.

What a lovely message they are sending - "Yes, we'll feed you, but only if we can exploit doing so to line our pockets."

This is one of my biggest peeves about the push to privatize so many services that should remain in the public sector.  It's absolutely abhorrent that our society seems to think it's OK to exploit our most vulnerable citizens of all ages and walks of life.

Whether it is taking care of abused and/or neglected children, giving a safe place of treatment for the mentally ill or feeding our elderly and disabled, these service are necessities - not luxuries or niceties.  In that sense, while it is important to do things effectively and efficiently in order to minimize waste and maximize the benefits, it does not do to cut corners and put people in harm's way for love of the Almighty Dollar.

To make matters worse, those that are so dead set on privatizing everything and anything they can - people like Scott Walker, Chris Abele and Robin Vos - are fully aware that privatizing services doesn't save any money and diminishes services.  But their greed doesn't allow them to do the proper thing either for the people that need help or the people paying for the needed services.

Some things should and need to be done simply because they are the right thing to do. Profit margins shouldn't even be a factor in these needed services.

If our greatness is measured by how we treat our most vulnerable and neediest citizens, we don't come out looking very good.

David Simon on Libertarianism!

 

By Jeff Simpson

Never have I heard it put so well and spot on:

Ultimately we abandoned that [the idea that unions had a place in an economy] and believed in the idea of trickle-down and the idea of the market economy and the market knows best, to the point where now libertarianism in my country is actually being taken seriously as an intelligent mode of political thought. It’s astonishing to me. But it is. People are saying I don’t need anything but my own ability to earn a profit. I’m not connected to society. I don’t care how the road got built, I don’t care where the firefighter comes from, I don’t care who educates the kids other than my kids. I am me. It’s the triumph of the self. I am me, hear me roar.

But wait...there's more:

 The idea that the market will solve such things as environmental concerns, as our racial divides, as our class distinctions, our problems with educating and incorporating one generation of workers into the economy after the other when that economy is changing; the idea that the market is going to heed all of the human concerns and still maximise profit is juvenile. It’s a juvenile notion and it’s still being argued in my country passionately and we’re going down the tubes. And it terrifies me because I’m astonished at how comfortable we are in absolving ourselves of what is basically a moral choice. Are we all in this together or are we all not?

Grinch Walker Throws His Elf Under The Sleigh

So, last Friday, I got an email from Scott Walker's campaign.  You've might have heard about it.  A few media sources have picked up the story.

Briefly, Walker's campaign sent out a fundraiser email saying that instead of buying silly old gifts for your children, you should donate that money to Walker's campaign.  It was like a modern day, political version of  "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."  The author of the letter was Taylor Palmisano, the deputy finance director for Walker's campaign.

Obviously, the email went beyond the pale.  To tell people suffering under Walker's regime should now deny their own children Christmas toys so that they could support his tyranny was just too much.

Not only that, but Palmisano was a big old hypocrite.  As one astute reader pointed out, she still had her bridal registry at Macy's, and not one of the things on the list was a donation to Walker's campaign!

Anyway, the story grew legs and went viral in just a couple of days.  This undoubtedly caused great embarrassment to Walker and needed to be addressed.

So he fired her.

But the way they did it and the reason they gave might have actually made things worse for themselves.

Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is reporting that Palmisano had made some very racist, anti-Hispanic tweets:

Image courtesy of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Walker's campaign is claiming that these tweets were the reason that they fired her and that "Both the Governor, and the campaign, condemn these insulting remarks which do not reflect our views in any way."

To which I say, "Poppycock!"

There are two main reasons why the campaign's statement is false.

One, as my colleague Jeff Simpson pointed out earlier today, these tweets are three years old.  Since the time she made those vulgar tweets, Walker's campaign not only hired her, but promoted her!

The other reason is that in 2010, one of Walker's campaign staff members, Michael Brickman, made a racist, anti-African American tweet.  This was retweeted by his spokeswoman, Jill Bader.  Not only were these two not fired, but Walker went on to make excuses for them.  On top of that, Walker made Brickman a member of his office staff.

So no, racism among his staff is not an issue for Walker.

The reason Walker fired Palmisano is that she caused him to be embarrassed on a national and international level. Not only would that hurt his reelection hopes, but it will also put a damper on his presidential aspirations.

Now there are three things that we can take away from this incident.

Walker is a liar.

But we already knew this.  Walker has lied about his job creation record.  He has lied about his supposed tax cuts.  He lied about the John Doe investigations, commonly referred to as Walkergate.  One would be hard pressed to find anything he was completely honest about.

Walker has a staffing problem.

Walker has an exceptionally high level of problems with who he hires as staff, either in government or in his campaigns.

On the campaign side, he has issues with Palmisano, Bader, and Brickman, as I've pointed out above.  But he also had problems with other staff members like Ciara Matthews and Nicole Tieman.

His government staff has been even more problematic for him.  We are talking about people like the people convicted in the Walkergate investigations, including Darlene Wink, Kelly Rindfleisch, Kevin Kavanaugh, Brian Pierick and Tim Russell.  There are also prizes like the uneducated, two-time drunk driver Brian Deshane. And lest we forget, there is Dennis Smith, who was hired to destroy Badger Care.  Instead, he wrecked a marriage.

I could go on and on, but I believe the gentle reader has the idea.

Walker is the Grinch

There is one thing that Bice and all of the other media sites that echoed his article missed, besides the fact that Palmisano wasn't really fired for tweets she made three years ago.

Walker has yet to address the issue of the email itself.  Did he approve the email before it was sent out?  Did he think it was a good idea to tell people to give him the money they would have otherwise used to buy their children Christmas presents?

I'd've thought that if he had an issue with the email, he would have said that Palmisano sent it out without his permission and that he felt that it sent the wrong message or something like that.  But he didn't deny it at all.

Scott Walker truly is the Grinch.  And if he cannot bring himself to deny the email, where would his avarice bring us if he were to be reelected, much less make it to the presidency.

Go Team WISGOP!

Right after Scott Walker dropped his Act 10 bomb on the state, the Democrats showed a rare front of unity (anyone will tell you that getting Democrats together is about as easy as herding cats) and stood up for working families.  We had the Fab 14, the state senators who left the state in order to buy time for the people to stand up and oppose this loathsome aggression.  The Assembly Democrats also showed unity by all wearing bright orange t-shirts:

For nearly three years, the Republicans have been envious of the Democrats' solidarity.  The most they could muster was coerced conformity.  But the Republicans did not give up.  After their latest session of waging war against the state, they have come up with a new idea.  Borrowing from the bill that legalized racism in the state, they are having their own t-shirts made up.

Go Team WISGOP!

Not pictured: The logo of their sponsors, ALEC and White Wisconsin, on their sleeves.

The Latest Corporate Maneuver To Screw Workers - Dump The Spouse!

With a tip of the crown to one of my tweeps, we find that UPS is starting a new attack on workers which is going to put the screw to a lot of families:

In a memo addressed to employees, U.P.S. said, “Limiting plan eligibility is one way to manage
ongoing health care costs, now and into the future, so that we can continue to provide affordable coverage for our employees.”

The memo also estimated that about 33,000 spouses were covered under its insurance plan for white-collar employees and that “about 15,000 of these would have health care coverage available through their own employers.”

In explaining its move — which was first reported by Kaiser Health News and USA Today — U.P.S. told employees, “Since the Affordable Care Act requires employers to provide affordable coverage, we believe your spouse should be covered by their own employer — just as U.P.S. has a responsibility to offer coverage to you, our employee.”

And it's not just the corporations. The public sector is also being similarly attacked:

Large employers like Xerox and Teva Pharmaceuticals already impose surcharges for spousal coverage. And some cities, like Terre Haute, Ind., decided to follow what many of its private corporations were doing, by adopting a “spousal carve-out” so that working spouses would not be covered under its health plans.

The corporations are blaming Obamacare for these moves, but the article goes on to report that the cost is minimal and that this is just another way for the corporations to increase their profit margin.

This kind of move will really hurt working families, especially if one or both spouses are working in a low-paying part-time job. While individual coverage is obviously less than family coverage, two individual costs would far exceed the cost of a family coverage. If a person is working a low paying job, health care coverage would eat up a large part of their check. In fact, the cost might become so high that it would be more cost effective for the family if the lesser paid spouse quit his or her job.

Needless to say, the cut in income would be devastating for the family. But it would also go to further slow the economic recovery and very possibly put us back in a downward spin.

A Contract Is A Contract

Over the weekend, there was a flurry of news coming from the State of Michigan, where Governor Rick Snyder is making the first power play for the pensions of Detroit workers.

Stemming from that is this wonderful article from Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, which gets right to the issue:

It is striking that so many people in the media are acting as though this clause does not exist. Part of the story is undoubtedly a belief by many reporters that Detroit workers got overly generous pensions. The pensions of Detroit’s workers are almost certainly better than private sector pensions, which have been rapidly disappearing. However, research shows that most public sector workers incur a wage penalty relative to private sector workers with the same education and experience. Better pensions and other benefits essentially even the score.

But even if Detroit’s workers got a good deal with their pay and benefit package, so what? A contract is still a contract. Workers put in their time in exchange for a specific package of pay and benefits, how can the government arbitrarily change the terms of the deal after the fact.

There are businesses that end up getting very good deals from the government all the time. How often does a state or local government end up selling a parcel of land for a price that turns out to be hugely below its true value. Or they may give tax concessions to lure businesses that prove to be overly generous. It looks like the City of Chicago made a really bad deal in leasing its parking meters to Morgan Stanley for three quarters of a century. Does Chicago get to just rewrite the terms of the contract?

In these cases involving businesses, somehow a contract is a contract, end of story. The relationship is sacred and no one suggests changing the terms after the fact. However, in the case of the pensions for city workers, these are just office workers, custodians, or garbage collectors. The media would have us believe that contracts with these sorts of people aren’t real contracts. If they prove inconvenient, then they can be changed.

While that may be the view that the media is trying to push, the rest of us should insist that the law and the constitution be respected. Detroit’s city workers have as much right to have their contracts respected as the Wall Street bankers making millions and billions off contracts that are often far more questionable.

This is class war at its ugliest. The elites have to learn that they don’t get to change the rules as they go along, if they want their contracts to be respected they will have to respect contracts that protect working people as well.

And even though I shouldn't need to remind the gentle reader, don't think for one minute that Scott Walker or Chris Abele aren't already looking at doing something similar with our pensions.

Banks Complain Credit Unions Are Like Banks

Either these people are completely self-unaware, hypocrites or utter idiots.  Or all three.  But to send out a press release like this one from the Wisconsin Bankers Association:

Taxpayers Should Be Outraged as yet Another Billion $$ Credit Union is Announced
Merger creates state's eighth "mega-credit union"

(MADISON) - Taxpayers should be outraged that Wisconsin may soon have its eighth billion dollar credit union. Pioneer Credit Union and Capital Credit Union have agreed to merge, creating yet another mega-credit union that won't be paying any income tax to the state. That means the average taxpayer will pay more in income tax than these billion dollar institutions. This new credit union will also be larger than 98 percent of the tax-paying banks in the Wisconsin.

Income taxes are collected for a reason. With yet another billion dollar institution still not paying their fair share, this means it is Wisconsin's businesses and consumers which are left to shoulder the burden of supporting the state.

"There is no reason these large, profit-driven credit unions should be allowed to continue to avoid paying their fair share," said Rose Oswald Poels, president/CEO of the Wisconsin Bankers Association. "They clearly have abandoned their congressionally mandated mission to serve those of modest means in favor of seeking larger profits."

OK, so the banks, which nearly collapsed the world economy in their greed, got bailed out with our tax money and used that money to give the CEOs large bonuses who used that money to buy politicians like Scott Walker and Paul Ryan so that they could pass laws further benefiting the banks and CEOs are now carping because someone else is enjoying success.

It's amazing that their heads don't explode.

It's actually no surprise that the banks are squawking.  They're probably hurting a lot more than they are letting on.

Remember that two years ago, there was a lot of union folks that pulled their money out of them, including when the AFL-CIO pulled their money out of M&I (now known as BMO Harris) because of their support of Scott Walker and the other Teapublicans.  Many people - union and nonunion - had gone to the credit unions and haven't looked back.

And a lot of people pulled their money during the Occupy Wall Street and other actions.

Methinks that the banks might be hurting more than they are letting on.

I do know that we at Chez Capper have been receiving a marked uptick in advertising mailers from banks and the one bank we still have dealings with have started making so many phone solicitations to us so much as to be stalkerish.

At least they are starting to see that they aren't too big to fail after all.

A Sobering Look At Chris Abele

As I've been sifting through the tens of thousands of pages of emails and other documents regarding Chris Abele and his usurpation and corruption of power, which have been recently released I have found many alarming things.

For example, look at this single email from Abele to his Chief of Staff, Amber Moreen, who came from his private charity group, the Argosy, at a highly elevated pay rate:

Click to embiggen

The email exchange is in regards to what to do with Frank Bau and another labor relations staffer while they were waiting for authorization to fill those slots.

Kimberly Walker, Abele's top lawyer in Corp Counsel, again oversteps her position and starts offering ways around the law.  Abele, as evidenced in the email, is all for it.

There is an obvious cause of concern in that this is the second time we've see Walker again overstepping her position as serving the public in order to serve the CEO, as if she was still in the private sector.

What's even more alarming though is what Abele reveals about himself.

First he admits that he has "a hard time not responsding and wanting to know what's going on all the time."

In other words, he feels and obsessive/compulsive urge to micromanage everyone and everything.  In layman's terms, he's a control freak.  He has no faith in his underlings, even though he is paying them outrageously exorbitant amounts of money to do their jobs.

And if something would not go the way he wants it to, he flies off the handle.  I could point to any of the people that Abele has suddenly fired without reason or warning.  but obviously the most glaring example is the very fact that he launched this whole power grab against the County Board when they dared to stand up for the taxpayers and for those receiving services from the County.

A good comparison would be the way Mitt Romney responded when he realized

they were losing the presidential election to Barack Obama.  Romney went into piques of rage, even going to the point of putting a gag at times on his running mate, Paul Ryan.

Given the fact that he cannot control the unions, he will be attacking them soon enough.  I would expect Abele to start privatizing everything he can, even though the cost to the taxpayers and to those depending on the services are going to go through the roof.

The other alarming thing about Abele's email is his quaint quip about the "even slightly drunk me."

It's disturbing to thing that such a control freak would not be in complete control of even himself.

Has he made decisions related to the county while intoxicated?  He apparently must have, given the context of this email.  Then being such an egomaniac, even if and when he realizes he screwed up, he won't admit it but pursues his folly to the end.

And now they have given him an unhealthy and inappropriate amount of power, effectively destroying representative government and a balance of powers:

Provisions that kick in immediately include shrinking the board's role in land sales, labor negotiations and contracts. The county executive can hire as many people as he wants for his office without interference. 

The executive also gets sole authority over the county fish hatchery, child support department, operation of the Milwaukee Public Museum, harbor facilities and any work relief program. Abele will have the sole power to create any new county department. He'll have primary oversight of minority contracting, which has been under the County Board. 

A provision in the bill assigning one county lobbyist to the county executive and one to the board is already spawning differences. Abele said he gets to hire and supervise both lobbyists, though one would work with the board. Dimitrijevic said she understood that the two-person lobbying unit would be independent, with one lobbyist working with the board and the other with Abele. 

The board's budget will drop from this year's $6.6 million to a maximum of $1.1 million starting next year, likely forcing a significant reduction in the 38-person board staff. However, several staff jobs now assigned to the board would be transferred to the county clerk and county comptroller. Four policy analyst jobs would go to the comptroller to create an independent service department that could be tapped by both the board and the county executive. The board currently has seven research analyst positions, though three are vacant.

The gentle reader should take a moment and think of all the things that terrified them about a Romney presidency, about what would happen letting a uber-rich, out of touch, corporate puppet having that much power, where only Congress would stand in his way.  Now realize that Milwaukee County is about to face a similar situation, albeit on a smaller scale, but also without a legislative body to keep his greed and corruption in check.

Mommy Says...

Sometimes, the simplest messages are the most powerful:

The Book of St. ALEC

Greed is good! Greed is God!

The looming question is whether this economic reality is necessarily

unbiblical. In the scope of this paper, we will examine the Biblical indicators that suggest that an existence of income inequality is not necessarily unjust or unnatural. To best understand this, we need to go to Scripture on two fundamental points: the distribution of gifts and abilities, and examples of God’s earthly rewards for stewardship within the context of market exchange. Outside of market activity, God can and does reward the stewardship of our gifts and abilities in alternative ways. It is important to remember that income is derived from market activity; it is one way Christians are rewarded for use of their gifts, not the only way. Dr. Kaiser highlights the Proverbs which tell us that possessions or property can be gained by industriousness (Proverbs 13:4, 14:23), wisdom (Proverbs 3:16; 24:3), or by development of insight (Proverbs 14:15).27

They even go on to cite the Book of Matthew to try to justify their greed.  Yet they somehow missed Matthew 19:24 in their research:

And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

It truly amazes me sometimes how far people will go to justify their unjustifiable behaviors.

H/T Gareth

Who - And What - Is Behind AB 85

On Sunday, Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, broke the story of who was actually behind AB 85 - the bill that would allow Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele to usurp all the power in Milwaukee County.

Not surprisingly, and as I've been saying all along, it wasn't Representative Joe Sanfelippo behind the bill, despite his claims to have penned it.  As someone
familiar with Sanfelippo pointed out, he doesn't have the ability to write an I.O.U. without screwing it up.

No, Sanfelippo is merely a sockpuppet for the Greater Milwaukee Committee, whose lobbyists and lawyers were the driving force behind the bill:

Newly released drafting documents from the Legislative Reference Bureau document the efforts of two lobbyists for GMC's political arm, Smart Government Inc.

"Please review this draft carefully to ensure that it meets your intent," wrote Marc E. Shovers, managing editor for the reference bureau. "As I discussed with Josh (Hoisington)and Ray Carey, I did not incorporate into this draft (of the bill) some of the requirements for a county executive that apply to Cuyahoga County because they seem to have no legal effect."

What's important here is not that someone wants the bill to be modeled after some Ohio county government.

Instead, the legislative staffer is consulting on the measure with Ray Carey, a lobbyist for the silk-stocking firm Foley & Lardner who has been retained by Smart Government. Hoisington is Sanfelippo's legislative aide.

Carey's cell is listed on another page of drafting notes.

Finally, the file documents a March 6 meeting in the office of Sen. Alberta Darling (River Hills), the lead sponsor of the bill in the Senate. The page includes notes on a line-by-line draft of the legislation.

Attending the private meeting was a second GMC lobbyist, former Senate Majority Leader Mary Panzer, according to the record. She was joined in the meeting by Sanfelippo and several legislative aides. Darling attended by phone.

No representative for the County Board is listed as attending the meeting.

Gee, Abele, Sanfelippo and GMC all caught lying. Who'd a thunk that? Outside of anyone that's been paying attention, that is.

Cory Liebmann took this and fleshed it out in a post showing that the fact that GMC is behind this is nothing new nor surprising:

This isn't the first time that some of these same interests tried to do an end-run around local control and local government to get what they want. Remember in 2006 when some of the same special interests paid for secret draft legislation to swipe control of Milwaukee County's successful airport? During that effort they wanted to make Mitchell a regionally controlled airport rather than a Milwaukee County asset. Even worse they wanted to specifically and totally bypass Milwaukee County officials and even local voters. In 2006 they even used the same law/lobby firm to do the job that GMC is using now. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 3/18/06]

In 2006 while many of the same special interests were busy drafting the legislation they found the perfect guy that would introduce it in the state legislature. In 2006 that role was played by Rep. Jeff Stone (R-Greendale) but today it is being played by Rep. Joe Sanfelippo (R-West Allis).

The fact that GMC's paid lobbyists were so deeply involved in writing this current bill tells us everything that we really needed to know about it. But perhaps we can actually learn more based on who WAS NOT involved in the drafting of this special interest legislation. As they furiously spin in the media and through their highly paid spokespeople they pretend that the beneficiary of this legislation is the public. But they didn't involve the public in writing this legislation. They didn't include key members of the community or other direct stake holders. In keeping with the pattern they had their well paid lobbyists helping write it behind closed doors.

If you had any doubt about what this legislation is really all about it should be totally cleared at this point. It was written by these special interests and for these special interests. Right now they are simply trying to force the rest of us to come along for the ride. Their highly paid PR firm and their phony front group will continue to spin that they really did it all for us. But the point remains, when it was time to actually draw up this legislation WE were not invited into the room.

So, so far we know have positive confirmation that this is a corporate/plutocrat bill that has nothing to do with the will of the people. We already knew that, but confirmation from an independent source is always nice.

But as with all things Abele, there is more. There is always more.

Note the lobbyist from Foley and Lardner who was so heavily involved with this bill - Ray Carey.

He's not just a lobbyist from a silk stocking law firm.

He was also a key player in the caucus scandal from ten years ago:

Among the four witnesses Tuesday were two former directors of the now-defunct Assembly Republican Caucus, which the Wisconsin State Journal revealed in May 2001 was operating along with the other three legislative caucuses as a secret campaign machine.

The two - Kratochwill and Ray Carey - told Moeser that much of their work revolved around campaign tasks such as recruiting candidates, monitoring and deploying state employees to work on campaigns and keeping leaders, including Jensen and Foti, apprised of how Republican Assembly candidates were faring in their races. And both testified they never saw Schultz, who was housed along with them at the Assembly Republican Caucus, do any legitimate government work.

"I did not observe her (Schultz) nor was I aware of her doing state business," Carey said. Kratochwill agreed, saying he never assigned Schultz any non-campaign-related work in part because, "she didn't do any legislative work."

Schultz's attorney, Stephen Morgan, asked Carey whether he believed during his tenure as caucus director from 1994 to 1999 that he was violating the law by having state employees work on private campaigns on state time. Carey, who is an attorney, replied, "I don't recall thinking about it."

[...]

Carey and Kratochwill each testified that Foti and Jensen regularly attended meetings, primarily in Jensen's Capitol office, in which the campaign activity of state employees was discussed. At no time did Jensen or Foti instruct either one to separate his state job from campaigning, they said. And both testified that their jobs as directors included running the private Republican Assembly Campaign Committee out of the taxpayer-funded Assembly Republican Caucus.

What is is with these conservatives and scandals? It seems like you can't have one without the other anymore.

But do even a little more digging and the real horror becomes bare.

Just take a gander at Carey's bio at the Foley & Lardner's website:

Raymond J. Carey is a highly respected and skilled advisor, trial lawyer, negotiator, and partner in the Labor and Employment Practice of Foley & Lardner LLP. He has over 30 years of experience wisely counseling employer representatives within all industries concerning the diversity of human resource and labor relations issues that affect the workplace. During his more than 30 years of practice, Mr. Carey has successfully defended employers and their management representatives against myriad individual plaintiff, multi-plaintiff and class action claims involving virtually all types of federal and state statutory and common law employment-related causes of action, including EEO, ERISA, FLSA, FMLA, USERRA, WARN, Section 301(a), whistle blowing, breach of non- compete agreements, breach of employment contracts, interference, breach of sales commission contracts and policies, and other federal and state statutory and common law causes of action.

Mr. Carey counsels employers concerning development and implementation of effective policies, practices and procedure pertaining to litigation avoidance, hiring, compensation, benefits, wage and hour compliance, FMLA and other leaves of absence, workplace accommodations, workplace investigations, promotion, discipline, layoff, reduction in force, workforce reorganization, discharge, equal employment opportunity, affirmative action, workplace diversity, and zero tolerance for workplace violence, discrimination, and harassment of any kind. He also advises employers with respect to labor/management relations issues, including effective union avoidance strategies, how to expeditiously defeat or avoid union facility specific and corporate-wide organizing campaigns, collective bargaining, grievance resolution, and other management/labor disputes, and he negotiates collective bargaining agreements on behalf of employers.

In addition to myriad pre-trial summary judgments and dismissals with prejudice among other pre-trial resolutions Mr. Carey has obtained for employers and their representatives consistent with their desired outcomes, he has successfully tried more than 100 cases in federal and state trial courts, before arbitrators, and in proceedings before federal and state administrative agencies, including the NLRB, DOL, OSHA/ MIOSHA, the EEOC, and the MDCR, among other federal and state administrative agencies. Mr. Carey also developed and implemented successful strategies that thwarted attempts by plaintiffs to certify class actions in over 20 employment cases throughout his career.

They also note that Carey writes articles and gives speeches regarding labor-related topics, including these beauties:

• Defense of FLSA Collective And Other Actions
• Defending Federal And State Wage And Hour Class And Collective Actions
• How To Effectively Defend Against Employment Related Class Actions
• How To Minimize Prospects For Employment Related Litigation
• How To Avoid Claims for Discrimination And Harassment Based On Protected Characteristics
• How To Defend Against Employment Discrimination And Other Employment Related Claims

and my personal favorite

• How To Remain Union Free

Remember, AB 85 would give Abele sole control over any labor contracts.  And we already have seen that Abele is not labor friendly as evidenced by his support of his wealthy friends at Palermos over the workers who simply want a voice.  And don't even get me started on the multitude of ways he's been trying to mess with his own employees.

It also reminds me of how Julia Taylor, Grand Poobah of the GMC plutocrats, complained that the County Board didn't allow Abele to gouge Milwaukee County employees as much as he wanted to.

Chris Abele

We already know that Abele and the other plutocrats want to eliminate any and all the authority the County Board has so that they can no longer thwart his ambitions to privatize and sell off as much as the county as he can.  

But why he is he going after the unions too?

Labor leader Thomas Donahue gave us that answer long ago:

"The only effective answer to organized greed is organized labor."

So, tell us again how this is for the good of the people and all about efficiency, because it sure looks like a plutocratic power grab from here.

A Streetcar Full Of Desire

More than twenty years ago, the federal government had tagged $91.5 million to be used for transit in the City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County.  But the county and city could not agree on how that money should be used and it sat languishing for some eighteen years.

In 2009, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett got tired of the stalemate and asked for help from Congress and President Obama in resolving this issue.  The result was that they passed a law stating that the City of Milwaukee would get 60% of the money and the County would get the other 40%.

Barrett chose that the city's share would go to beginning a streetcar route with the plan of giving the city a true intermodal system of mass transit.  As you can imagine, given the Republican's irrational hatred of anything to do with rails and job creation, were outraged at this idea and have been fighting it ever since.

The main antagonists are, unsurprisingly, the Bradley Foundation and the Koch Brothers.  In the past number of years, they have sent in their pawns to try to interfere with the progression of the streetcar, trying to derail it at every bend.

First they sent in Brett Healy, the head troll at the propagandist group MacIver Institute, who filed a petition complaining that his power bill could go up because of the work the utilities would have to put in moving some wires around.

When that didn't work, they sent in the ethically challenged Alderman Bob Donovan and the thugs at the ironically-named Citizens for Responsible Government, who thought they would collect so many signatures on anti-streetcar petitions that they would just have to stop it dead in its tracks.  That idea flopped as well.

A couple months later, they teamed up Donovan the Daft with Americans for Poverty to try it again.  But since they couldn't get enough boots on the ground, they decided to go for - brace yourselves - a website where they would collect signatures from all over the area.  And even then, they failed again.

Now the corporate special interests are at it again with yet a new approach.  They simply force the city to their will, much like they are trying to force the county to their will.  State Representative Dale Kooyenga is planning on introducing a bill that will force the cost on the taxpayers.  The corporate special interests figure that this will stop the program.
figure that if they cannot get the public opinion on their side, they figure that they  will

Our young friend on his Soapbox does a damn fine job of laying out all the problems with this maneuver, including the fact that the claim that buses are inherently better than a streetcar is false.  He is especially on the mark when he writes:

This is what scares me about this legislative session... it's not so much what Governor Walker introduces, it's the precedent that can, and slowly is being set by the legislature. I cannot accept the State of Wisconsin dictating to the City of Milwaukee or the County of Milwaukee, or any other municipality, how they should handle their affairs. It is wrong on many, many levels.

There are a couple of things though that I would point out.

One is this line from Kooyenga's press release:

"The streetcar may be used by 1% of the Milwaukee area residents, but will be paid for by 100% of the residents in the Milwaukee area. It is my intent to ensure we are not wasting local, state and federal taxpayer’s money on 19th century infrastructure," said Rep. Kooyenga.

What an odd thing to say for a man who voted consistently to have 100% of Wisconsin taxpayers pony up to further enrich the 1%, whether they were from Wisconsin or not.  It was this type of oligarchy that gave rise to the unions at about the same time that the first street cars were introduced.

Then there is the press release from Donovan, where he's just giddy with the news that the project could be stopped:

If approved, this means city taxpayers and certain downtown businesses alone would shoulder the burden of these as yet unknown costs, which are believed to be approximately $70 million. I simply cannot fathom members of the Common Council allowing the project to move forward under that cost scenario, so Rep. Kooyenga’s legislation would effectively be the final stake in the heart of the streetcar project. 

I want to publicly thank Rep. Kooyenga for his legislation. Not only is he giving me an early birthday present, but he’s also exercising the common sense that I wish more of our local public officials would tap into more often.

So Donovan thinks that not creating jobs and lifting up the local economy is like a birthday present?  I'd hate to see what he wants for Christmas.

What this is really about is that the corporate special interests don't want to see that money go to something that might actually benefit the people.  They would rather see that money go unused until such time that they can figure out a way to manipulate the system so that that money ends up in their coffers - preferably without having to give up anything in return for it.

Behold What "Innovation" Brings!

For years, I have written about the county grounds located in Wauwatosa.  It was the last area in Milwaukee County that was still pristine in its naturalness.  It was also the home of the historic Eschweiler Buildings and the unique gem of the Monarch Trail, one of the few naturally occurring gathering points for the migrating Monarch butterflies.

Even though Scott Walker promised to never allow this land to be developed, he betrayed the people of Milwaukee County when he sold the land for a song, so that some private land developers could come in and build an engineering school that no one - neither students, professors nor citizens - wanted there.

What they also wanted to do is build other things, like factories, a hotel, a restaurant and other profit making ventures which they ironically called Innovation Park.

Unsurprisingly, some of the members of this group of wealthy land developers including Walker's friends among the Greater Milwaukee Committee, the same group that now wants to take control of Milwaukee County so that they can shut down the government and make it a true plutocracy.

After Walker gave away this precious land, the battle to preserve it moved to Wauwatosa's City Hall.  The Wauwatosa Common Council heard arguments from the developers "experts," trained salesmen whose soul job was to push and pull whatever strings and make whatever promises needed to get the Council to go along with this plan.  The Council also heard from the citizens who criticized the plan, the environmentalists who pleaded for the land and others who pointed out what a bad decision this would be, including experts from UW-Milwaukee.

In the end, then Mayor Jill Didier and the false promise of wealth won the day and Wauwatosa not only gave the developers everything they wanted, they also threw away $12 million of taxpayer money in the form of a TIF to support the developers, who barely had enough money to buy the land, and that was only after many delays.

Current Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele eventually rewarded Didier for helping out his buddies with a cushy job in the county, for which she was not qualified.  Sound familiar?

For more than a year, the grounds sat while the developers pushed for more of the land and more of the taxpayers' money.

The developers sold off the Eschweiler Buildings to yet more developers on the pretense that they would restore the buildings to their former grandeur.  Instead, they came out saying that they want to raze all but one of the buildings and want the taxpayers to pay for their profit taking too.

And despite the developers' promises of all sorts of jobs being created, it has created none.  There was a moment of hope when ABB Inc. said that they wanted to build on the land and create 350 jobs.  But as it turns out, they will only be moving jobs from one of their other sites and to do this - you guessed it - they wanted a share of the taxpayers money as well.

And the battle to preserve the few acres the developers had magnanimously granted for the natural habitat is still waging.

Recently, the developers had tried to make a move to eliminate all public input from any further proceedings.  It was only because of the pressure put on by the presence of many angry citizens and the courage of one councilman, Jason Wilke, that the habitat was preserved.

Or so we hope.

It was brought to my attention that this past weekend, the work started in earnest at the county grounds.  But instead of building anything, they started by cutting down century old trees which weren't anywhere near the proposed construction site, as shown in these before and after pictures a friend sent me:

Eddee Daniel has more photos of the senseless devastation along with a very moving account as he witnessed this horror as it happened.

I cried when I saw these pictures and Daniel's article.

I cried for Izzy and her mother who had sought refuge at the grounds from the stress of her illness.

I cried for my friends Barb, Lulu and Eddee who have put so much of themselves in the effort to preserve the land.

I cried for the senseless destruction of nature and the more destruction yet to come.

Most of all, though, I cried because I knew this is what will become of the rest of the county as a result of consolidating power in the hands of one person who doesn't listen to the people but only to the same wealthy people that caused this to happen.

Shame on Milwaukee County.  Shame on Scott Walker and Chris Abele.  Shame on the Wauwatosa Common Council.

This should never have been.

I see no innovation here.  I only see the same old profiteering and exploitation that has been plaguing our county and our state for way too long.

Killing The Golden Calf

Lisa Mux, the Waukesha Wonk, called it days ago, when Golden Guernsey up and closed up shop without any advanced warning or attempts to work with the state to help out the well more than 100 workers they just laid off.

Mux had written right after the news at broken:

In fact, the real trouble seemed to start when an investment company in California, Open Gate Capital, bought out the plant after the lawsuit. According to some workers, Open Gate did not have any experience in dairy, and may not have been a reliable company. From Fox 6 Now:

It is a lawsuit workers believe let an unreliable company purchase the plant and shut it down.

Open Gate finally issued a press release and - wouldn't you know it?- blamed the unions:

OpenGate Capital said that when it acquired Golden Guernsey, the acquisition terms included an exclusive and fixed-price milk supply agreement, and the assumption of a legacy union contract. As Golden Guernsey was under pressure to meet demands for lower cost products, it was unable to successfully reduce its expenses in a way to achieve a state of financial viability given some of its legacy relationships, according to OpenGate Capital.

Since being acquired by OpenGate Capital, Golden Guernsey made efforts to reduce its expenses through discussions with its various suppliers, vendors and the labor union.

“The prospect of closing the plant and the potential for bankruptcy was raised on several occasions with these groups, all of which were provided with a clear picture of Golden Guernsey's fragile financial condition. Despite this, Golden Guernsey's efforts were rejected, leading to the closure of the business,” OpenGate stated in a press release.

Yup, sounds just like what the vulture capitalists at Hostess said when they killed off that business, grabbed the money and ran like the thieves that they are.

As soon as the Open Gate vultures realized that they weren't going to get to keep their monopoly and rake in the money hand over fist, they closed shop and ran off with all the loot they can carry.

Fortunately, at least one person knew his rights and has filed a complaint with the state for the company's illegal maneuver. It'll be interesting to see what Scott Walker will have his people do with the complaint. I guess it really comes down to how much money Open Gate donated to Walker's legal defense fund.

But I can't help but appreciate that this is a twist of a classic portrayal of the greedy bastards like those at Open Gate. Only instead of stealing candy from a baby, they taking milk way from little kids.