Be On The Lookout!

 

By Jeff Simpson

While the Cancer Treatment Bill passed yesterday in the Senate 30-2(with the coward Scott Fitzgerald voting for it - Leah Vukmir and Paul Farrow casting votes against(and should be severly punished the next time their name is on a ballot).  

Now it goes to the Assembly where thrice divorced and dating a lobbyist speaker Robin Vos has taken enough campaign donations from Big pharma to block this bill from coming to a vote.  

Mike McCabe wrote the following on Facebook this morning.
The cancer drug bill is being blocked in the state Assembly too, despite the fact the legislation is supported by at least 61 of the Assembly’s 99 members, including all 39 Democrats and 22 Republicans.
Assembly Republicans have received nearly $287,000 in political donations from interests opposing the legislation. The top recipient is the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee ($43,700), the leadership PAC controlled by Speaker Robin Vos. Vos himself is fourth on the list of leading recipients, with $16,400 in donations from bill opponents to his personal campaign committee. Another opponent of the cancer drug bill, Representative John Nygren, who is co-chair of the powerful Joint Finance Committee, is second on the list of recipients

There you go Cancer victims from WI.  Robin Vos has officially valued your life at less than $16,400.  People in the 63rd District must be so very proud of their rep.   

The rest of the republicans in the Assembly are such cowards, that they refuse to state publicly if they support the bill or not!  

When asked in the Capitol Tuesday, here's a sampling of those who wouldn't say if they were for or against the bill.
Rep. Mike Kuglitsch (R-New Berlin): "I really don't have an opinion."
Rep. Daniel LeMahieu (R-Cascade): "I'm not saying anything about oral chemo."
Rep. Duey Stroebel (R-Saukville): "We're still working that out."
Rep. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green): "We'll talk about it Thursday."
Rep. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield): "I'm still discerning it."
Rep. Mary Williams (R-Medford): "Uh, I'm not going to talk to you."
Rep. Tyler August (R-Lake Geneva): "I have to take a look at it."
Rep. Rob Swearingen (R-Rhinelander): "I'm going to wait for caucus on Thursday."

Nothing says conviction and backbone like "I am going to wait for caucus."   Swearingen needs to be told how to think behind closed doors apparently.

One person notably absent(I wonder if Vos is threatening to hold his paycheck or sending State troopers to his house?) is the face of the republican party, former majority leader, Wild Bill Kramer (R-Waukesha).   

Kramer is AWOL and collecting taxpayer money and benefits!   Must be nice to not have to show up to work and still get full pay and benefits! 

Seriously though, just in case there is something seriously wrong with Mr. Kramer beyond the normal republican sense of entitlement and lack of personal responsibility, we at CogDis want to help.  

We will be rolling these out statewide soon(H/T Phill Scarr): 

If you see republican representative Kramer, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO APPREHEND OR CONVERSE WITH, as he is known to be drunk and dangerous.


Please call republican moral leader Robin Vos:

Toll Free:  888-534-0063

Madison Office:  608-266-3387

Home Phone:  262-514-2597

 

 

 

 

 

The Paul Ryan Effect!!

 

By Jeff Simpson


On Wednesday Afternoon, Paul Ryan (R- Wall St.) met with the Wisconsin republican Assembly to deliver an election year pep talk!

Thanks @RepPaulRyan for talking to WI Assembly Republicans today. @rep89 @MikeKuglitsch @jimsteineke pic.twitter.com/OgrUwqIExv
— Speaker Robin Vos (@SpeakerVos) February 26, 2014

Well Wild Bill Kramer took Ryan's pep talk to heart!   

Two Republicans with direct knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press earlier Saturday that Kramer had been asked to resign amid charges that he harassed multiple women Wednesday night and Thursday.
The Republicans who spoke about the situation did so anonymously because attorneys had not authorized them to comment publicly.
Kramer also was asked to consider whether to resign his seat in the Legislature, the Republicans said.

I wonder what exactly Paul Ryan told Bill Kramer that afternoon?  

 

Greenfield School Districts Stands Up For Its Students

It's good to see people aren't rolling over and taking the crap that the Teapublicans are dishing out:

Greenfield’s interim superintendent David Ewald said the voucher program and other initiatives like charter schools don’t have a proven track record, and questioned the economic feasibility of expanding the voucher program.

“The intent of voucher schools was to give school choice to students who live in poverty,” he said. “But if it spreads, creating another school system in addition to the one we have would be a huge cost.”

On Monday, the School Board is likely to unanimously support a resolution crafted by board member Robert Hansen denouncing the voucher program and expressing the district’s unified opposition to it.

Board member Rick Moze said one of his biggest issues with the voucher program is its lack of accountability.

“As far as I know, it’s the only state-funded program with no regulations,” Moze said.

State Representative Mike Kuglitsch - whom I'm afraid is now my gerrymandered representative and whose only claim of fame is running a bowling alley in the middle of nowhere - showed that he's gotten his head stuck in the return chute once too often with this inane comment:

In a statement earlier this week, State Representative Mike Kuglitsch (R-New Berlin), who district includes part of Greenfield, praised the expansion of the “promising school choice program.”

“Not all students learn the same way, and we must give parents the tools to send their children to a school that best fits their needs,” he said.

The only tool I see in this deal is Kuglitch.

But what does he care as long as he keeps cashing in his two paychecks - the one paid for by the taxpayers and the one paid for by ALEC.

Republicans Celebrate Governor Doyle's Job Numbers

On Thursday, Scott Walker and the Republicans and the corporate media were celebrating the job numbers that came out:

Wisconsin gained 62,072 private-sector jobs between December 2010 and December 2012, the state Department of Workforce Development said Thursday. 

The count, based on a set of employment data considered to be the most reliable, had Republicans applauding the performance of Gov. Scott Walker.

My own gerrymandered state representative, Mike Kuglitsch, whose only claims to fame are running a bowling alley in the middle of nowhere and being a good little Teapublican, had this to say:

Earlier this week, the United States Department of labor released its quarterly jobs numbers. The report showed that Wisconsin has gained over 60,000 jobs since Governor Scott Walker took office in 2011. This is a major step in the right direction as Wisconsin lost nearly 134,000 jobs under Governor Jim Doyle's last session. 

We have seen increased revenue projections and Wisconsin is really starting to it turn around. Our state was recently rated the 17th best state to do business in, which is up three spots from last year. I happy to see our reforms working and the thought of constant job loss is a thing of the past. 

Although this report is positive, there is still much work to be done. We must ensure that Wisconsinites keep as much as their hard earned money in their pockets, while expanding a workforce that can continue to put Wisconsin on the forefront of economic development.

All I can say is that I hope they didn't break out the expensive bubbly and I hope they all sent former Governor Jim Doyle a big thank you card.

The spin they are trying to put on this is as utterly ridiculous as when the MacIver Institute (for the Criminally Insane) tried to tell us that Walker had surpassed the halfway point to his 250,000 job creation promise.

To understand what I am getting at, look at the first half of the first sentence I cited above:

Wisconsin gained 62,072 private-sector jobs between December 2010 and December 2012...

Walker wasn't even sworn into office until January 2011, so already they are using a month of data from the Doyle era.

Secondly, look at the actual job numbers for all of 2011:

As the gentle reader can plainly see, job growth was indeed growing at a healthy clip during the first six months of Walker's term.  But this was all before Walker's policies and budget were in place or had a chance to take effect.

The job growth during the time that Doyle's budget and policies were still in effect is around 30,000 jobs - about half of the total Walker is claiming to have created.

Or to put it in other words, it's taken Walker three times as long to create the same amount of jobs that Doyle did in the last six months that his budget and policies were in place.

Even if one were so gullible as to take the Republican's claims at face value, when Wisconsin's jobs numbers are compared to the rest of the Midwest or the rest of the country, the growing job growth gap is horribly depressing:

As the gentle reader will note, the gap really started growing as first Act 10 kicked in and then exploded again as Walker's first budget took effect.

It should also be noted that the numbers that Walker and the Republicans are including do not include the more than 10,000 public sector jobs lost during this period.

Once you figure in the public sector job loss and take out the jobs that Governor Doyle brought in, that leaves the Republicans touting about 20,000 to 25,000 job gain in an 18 month time period.  That number is worse than what they projected if Walker and his Republican cronies had done nothing.

This horrifically poor job growth and the further lagging behind our neighbors are what the Republicans are celebrating.

Ah, but with this lot of miscreants, the one thing we should always remember is that there is more.  There is always more.

The reason that the Republicans are trying to force their spin on the job numbers so much is that the real news is even much worse:

But the numbers, while showing growth, leave Walker well behind pace on fulfilling his much-discussed promise to create 250,000 private-sector jobs during his four-year term. 

And another set of employment data - this one preliminary and subject to revision - showed Wisconsin losing an estimated 22,600 private-sector jobs during April of this year.

I can see why Walker and his allies are trying to draw the public's eye away from these numbers.  The only thing with a higher loss number would be the hairs on top of Walker's head.

In summary, the truth of the matter is that Walker cannot claim to have created 62,000 jobs in two years.  He actually could take credit for only half of that number and then it still took him 18 months to do even that little.  Even worse, that paltry number is grossly inflated if one only considers family-supporting jobs.

When all the true data is considered, Walker is much shorter of his promise than even what their spin would have us believe.

Instead of celebrating and bragging about these numbers, the Republicans should be groveling and begging for our forgiveness.