Mediatrackers Plays (Foot)Loose With the Facts

By Jeff Simpson

Mediatrackkkers and Brian Sikma is at it again.   Apparently modeling his hero the Rev. Shaw Moore, now dancing is something that the Bradley Foundation funded Media Trackers is attacking.

  Dance degrees are offered at six University of Wisconsin system campuses, including minors offered at UW-Green Bay, UW-Whitewater, and UW-Eau Claire. UW-Stevens Point offers a Bachelor of Arts in Dance and UW–Milwaukee and UW- Madison offer both Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees in Dance.....
 Classes run the gamut from Javanese Performance Repertory to Body Sense I&II. According to the course listing, Body Sense, “provide[s] an environment for creative exploration of individual body awareness, integration of body-mind and experiencing the body in space.” Further study in this area would lead to, “intensified self-observation and documentation of experience. Stress on intrapersonal, interpersonal, emotional, and existential intelligences.”

Apparently dance is bad in the Michael Grebe, Eric O'Keefe, Brian Sikma, Collin Roth, Charley Sykes vision of Wisconsin.     We must all pay for the fact that none of them could get a movie date in the 80's to see Footloose.  If they had they would know that dancing plays a part in the Bible(they should try reading that book):

Where is Ren McCormick when you need him?  Do we really need to defend the ability of people who have a passion for dancing to further their career via our University System?  

I know that the folks at mediatrackkkers do not understand Capitalism, but there is money to be made in dancing! There are also plenty of jobs for these majors to go into from College.   

In case you were wondering(MT skips this) but the arts bring over $535 Million dollars and almost 23000 jobs to our great State of Wisconsin.  

These guys and their archaic ideas and massive lies, make me so mad I just need to relieve some stress

Mountains Out Of Molehills And Molehills Out Of Mountains

Charlie Sykes touts another "breaking story" from the crack reporters propagandists at Media Trackers and at the MacGuyver Institute.  This time the story has to deal with some knucklehead who made a stupid off-the-cuff comment on Facebook about killing Scott Walker.

Keep in mind that there is no specific plan on how the alleged assassin-wannabe would go about the deed, strengthening the point that it was more of a vent than an actual threat.

Now compare that to the story at Mother Jones, where a group of thugs have actual plans on how they are going to try to tamper the recall effort by committing fraud in misrepresenting themselves and then destroying the ballots they have signed.

So how serious is this threat?  The article explains:

Michael Maistelman, a Wisconsin attorney and election law expert who reviewed screenshots of the comments, says the postings could raise serious legal issues if the plan is to tamper with official recall petitions. "If a person fraudulently solicits recall petitions and then destroys those petitions, they will probably go to jail," Maistelman says. "The law is very clear on this."

[UDPATE]: Reid Magney, a spokesman from Wisconsin's Government Accountability Board, says destroying or defacing an official recall petition would violate state law. (Here's the relevant statute.) Such a violation, he adds, would be a class I felony in Wisconsin, which carries a maximum fine of $10,000 and up to three-and-a-half years in jail.

Somehow, I don't think it pays to wait for Media Trackers or MacGuyver to cover this story. They simply don't deal with reality.

Cross posted at Whallah!

How Much Money Will The Kochs Drop For Walker This Time?

We have already seen the beginnings of the Koch Brothers dumping money to keep the governor's seat bought with their puppet in the chair. But did you ever wonder how much they're willing to spend in order to keep pillaging Wisconsin?

Well, here's some bone-chilling information for you that you won't find in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and you definitely won't hear MacGuyver Institute or Wisconsin Reporter admitting to it::

The Kochs founded and provide millions to Americans for Prosperity, a political organisation that builds grassroots support for conservative causes and candidates. Americans for Prosperity, which has 33 state chapters and claims to have about two million members, has close ties to Tea Party groups and played a key role in opposing Obama's health care initiative.

This year, Americans for Prosperity spent at least half a million dollars supporting Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's efforts to cut social spending and roll back collective bargaining rights for public employee unions. The legislation passed by Walker makes it more difficult for unions, which are major backers of Democratic candidates, to secure funds for political purposes. Americans for Prosperity is also very active in a battle against unions in Ohio, another important 2012 presidential state. Its president, Tim Phillips, says that the organisation is winning in Wisconsin and around the country "because on the policies of economic freedom, we're right". He refused to tell People & Power reporter Bob Abeshouse how much the organisation is spending to combat the unions.

The Kochs have also poured millions into think tanks and academia to influence the battle over ideas. According to Kert Davies, the director of research for Greenpeace in the US, the Kochs have spent more than $50m since 1998 on "various front groups and think tanks who ... oppose the consensus view that climate change is real, urgent and we have to do something about it". As operators of oil pipelines and refineries, the Kochs have opposed all efforts to encourage alternative sources of energy by imposing a tax on fossil fuels.

Patrick Michaels, a senior fellow at the CATO Institute, often appears in the media to contest global warming science. CATO was founded by Charles Koch, and the Kochs and their foundations have contributed about $14m to CATO. Since 2009, there has been a sharp drop in the percentage of Americans who see global warming as a serious threat according to Gallup polls. Davies argues that the change can be attributed in large measure to the efforts of scientists like Michaels and others who are funded by the fossil fuel industry.

The Kochs have also promoted their free market ideology and business interests through aggressive lobbying in Washington DC, and financial support of political candidates. Greenpeace has tracked more than $50m that Koch Industries has spent on lobbyists since 2006, when Cap and Trade and other legislation to combat global warming was being considered. The Kochs have been the largest political spender since 2000 in the energy sector, exceeding Exxon, Chevron, and other major players.

Thank goodness we have the people on our side.

Darn Those Aciton Committees!

From Koch News, aka MacGuyver Institute (motto: We can craft a lie with just a paper clip, duct tape and a ball point pen!), those crack political activists disguised as a harmless 501(c)3, comes this bit of breaking news (emphasis mine):

WEAC, Wisconsin’s largest teachers’union, spent nearly a half million dollars in one day on behalf of Democratic candidates through their political aciton committee, the MacIver News Service has learned.

Oops! It appears that the only thing broken is their spellcheck.  You think the Koch Bros. could afford better.  Then again, they bought Scott Walker, showing they don't know how to shop well.

I wonder when the guys at MacGuyver will get around to reporting how much the Koch Boyz are spending to defend their puppets Republican candidates. It really shouldn't be too hard - they could just start with their own salaries.

H/T Troglopundit - the taller version of Kevin Fischer.

Or We Could Just Work On Solving The Problem

Brian Fraley, of the misrepresenting MacGuyver Institute, thinks that it is high time that the state does away with collective bargaining rights and to make Wisconsin a right-to-work state. His rationale for these propositions is because government workers supposedly currently outnumber private sector workers.

Fraley, in order to support such an inane proposal, first construct an artificial argument, claiming that it was the public sector unions that forced this reversal in numbers between the private and public sector. The unions diabolical method for achieving this, according to Fraley, is that they vote.

Those bastards!

The truth of it is that the Republicans, his group, has been spending decades systematically weakening the private sector unions through the repeal of worker protection laws and by waging a propaganda war against unions in an effort to make them look like the bad guys. This animosity, combined with their diminished rights, has created such a riff that the majority of wealth in our economy is again being concentrated among the elite few.

The right now apparently feels they have the unions where they want them and are preparing to go for the jugular of the middle class and do away with unions altogether. Again, Fraley's argument for this is based on falsehoods. He makes it seem that all public sector workers are living in the lap of luxury and that is why the economy is doing so poorly.

The fact of the matter is that public sector employees are not doing all that well, salary-wise, especially compared to the private sector. Yes, the public sector does tend to have better fringe benefits, but that is simply because they choose to forgo immediate gratification and keep their eyes on the bigger picture. If one really wanted to take care of the high costs of these benefits, it would be much wiser, fiscally conservative, and socially responsible to simply do something constructive about the cost of health care, which is too damn high.

And if you were wondering where all that money is, if not in the hands of those public sector workers, take a look at the top personnel of the corporations, which are making record profits, but not reinvesting it by hiring anyone.

Instead of constructing straw man arguments in order to attack one part of the population who are just as much victims of the economy as anyone, Fraley and his front group should try to be honest with themselves and us, just this once. If their concern is truly the economy and taxes, they should take a long hard look at how they, by rallying their wagons around Big Business and Big Rx, are actually the problem, and admit that their cure would only push this country closer to a plutocracy. Then again, this might be their goal after all.

Likewise, Fraley's argument about Wisconsin needing to be a right-to-work state is equally bogus. First of all, most unions do have it in place where people can opt out of being in the union.

Secondly, this state is already a right-to-work state. If you don't want to belong to a union, don't take a job in a union shop. It's really that simple. If you want to be a serf for the rest of your life, that is your business. Just don't try to take the rest of us down with you.

Wigging The Dog

I was afraid something like this would happen.

When James Wigderson started writing for the McIver Institute, I was a little shocked and more than a little dismayed. For a long time, James was a prolific writer whose points, even when I disagreed, were at least well-written, honest and supported with facts. When he started writing for McIver, I was concerned that this would change. Unfortunately, I was proven correct.

The McIver Institute, for those who aren't familiar, is a low grade right wing front group. Sort of like the third string team for a Junior Varsity squad. You can't expect a lot of honesty from them, and they don't disappoint in that sense.

It appears that James has fallen into that morass.

In his post, a somewhat predictable essay repeating the same tired and inaccurate talking points used to regularly trash unions.

First, Wigderson does accurately report that the County budgeted concession that had not been negotiated into their budget. What he fails to mention is that is against state and federal labor laws to negotiate contracts via the budget. He also fails to mention that the unions and the County did have a Tentative Contract that would have saved Milwaukee County millions of dollars in higher health care contributions from the workers as well as two years of pay freezes.

Unfortunately for the workers and the tax payers, Scott Walker was able to spook enough supervisors that the contract was rejected. Now, besides losing those unsaved millions of dollars, the County is sinking deeper into the fiscal abyss Walker has led us to.

Wigderson then lists what he thinks are the concessions demanded (not asked for or put up for negotiation) by Walker:

For 2010, the county budgeted wage and benefit concessions across the board, including union employees. The county budget calls for a wage freeze, no step increases, $30 per month health care premium increase, and a change in the pension multiplier to 1.6%. In his budget address, County Executive Scott Walker said 48% of the county budget goes to fund wages and benefits for county employees. The concessions are necessary to fill a $10 million budget gap.

The truth is much more severe and a matter of public record. If Wigderson wanted to be honest, he could have gotten the information. Can you imagine being asked to pay a percentage of something you have no control over? There is no way of telling if Walker would then try to switch plans to one of his campaign donors who could raise their rates by double digit percentages. Agreeing to that would be highly irresponsible.

Wigderson further thinks that the furlough extension were a wise idea and that the the privatization was forward looking.

What an odd thing to say for someone who is supposed to be watching out for the tax payers and supportive of wise spending.

The mental health complex is already on pace to break all previous records for overtime due to being chronically understaffed, which is only exasperated by the furlough days. Things are so bad that the County has tentatively reached a collateral agreement with the nurses to forgive them their furlough days (and that is on top of the raises that Walker gave them).

I have also learned just today that at the House of Correction, they've already had at least one shift where there were more officers working for overtime pay than there were officers working their normal hours. This was due to the furlough days.

The privatization of the security at the mental health complex, to which Wigderson alludes, is actually costing tax payers more money than if it had been kept in the public sector. The same complaint has been made by County Supervisors regarding the food service at BHD. On top of all that, the whole Wackenhut deal sounds like it isn't much of a deal at all. (Perhaps someone with more time than I could do some checking to see if executives from Wackenhut had donated money to Walker's campaign. After all, that does appear to be a strong possibility, given Walker's track record.)

If Wigderson and Team McIver were really interested in lowering taxes, they would be advocating for real reform to the health care system, seeing how it's health care costs that are the biggest chunk of a public employee's benefits.

Another point that Wigderson fails to note is that besides the concessions, Walker also wanted to cut a few hundred jobs. There is no union that I am aware of that would willingly agree to large concessions and job cuts.

Interestingly, if Walker had shown real leadership, he would have done the same as many other civic and county leaders and actually sat down and negotiated for the concessions he wanted. Instead, Walker gives us grandstanding and bellicose sound bites which only belie the fact that he has nothing to offer.

Furthermore, if Walker failed at getting the concessions he wanted, he could have greatly minimized the damage to the county and to his political aspirations by declaring his self-created fiscal emergency on January 1, 2010 and laid off 300 workers, which would have achieved the same results.

Due to his failure to act in a timely fashion, he now has to demand excessive furlough days and lay off almost twice as many workers, which will severely jack up overtime costs and diminish services to the point where he will no longer be able to hide it from the media. His bluster of being tough on the unions will quickly fade when people find out he is much tougher on the tax payers. Walker's purposeful delay of addressing the issue shows a few things:

• He clearly doesn't know what he is doing
• The lay offs/furloughs are merely Walker playing political games with peoples lives, like he has done before
• He realizes that if he keeps cutting workers, services will get cut so deeply they will start having an immediate and strong negative impact on his political dreams.
  

And while it is indeed sad that many workers will needlessly lose their jobs (and likely their homes), it is even sadder that all of the tax payers and the people who rely on the services provided by Milwaukee County are going to suffer, through no fault of their own, but due to Walker's lack of foresight and leadership and political avarice.

In summary, James Wigderson was half-correct: There is a severe lack of leadership in Milwaukee County. Where he went wrong was blaming it on the unions for doing what they are supposed to do, and not placing the blame where it belongs - firmly and squarely on Scott Walker's shoulders.