Pee In A Cup - Part 2

By Jeff Simpson

In case you missed it, as Wonkette put it - Scott Walker will fight for Wisconsin's right to collect poor people's pee! 

We do not think that drug testing people on the public dole is such a bad idea.  We even offered up the first person who should be tested - Richard Uihlein. 

Now I would like to offer up drug test subjects #2 & #3 - Plexus Corp. board members David Drury and Ralf Boer!  

See Drury and Boer are huge donors to one Scott Kevin Walker, who in turn is a huge donor to the company that they sit on the board for.    The problem is not just that there has been quid pro quo going on between these two parties with our tax dollars,  but that Plexus cashed in with taxpayer dollars then sent jobs overseas! 

While that has become common place with the rise of WEDC in Scott Walker's Wisconsin, the reason they NEED to be tested is that they are denying they did so! 

Maybe Boer & Drury are actually Cheech and Chong revisited!  

Speaking Of Outsourcing...

Today was the first day of the Wisconsin State Fair.

As the gentle reader would imagine, it was full of food, animals and politicians.

Both Mary Burke and Scott Walker were there.

Do you suppose they might have had a friendly outsourced cream puff eating contest?

Walker Must Have Outsourced His Campaign Staff

Scott Walker has come out with yet another negative attack ad (just how bad is his internal polling?) attacking Mary Burke with in regards to her company, Trek, outsourcing jobs to China.

I will admit that this has been a sticking point for me when it comes to Burke.  Not the biggest one, but something that I do take into consideration.

That said, just like Walker did with his attack on land deals, he is coming at her with a great disadvantage that makes this attack laughable.

Walker launched this ad just days after it came out that his epic failure, WEDC (Walker's Economy Destroying Cronies), had given millions of dollars to at least two companies that used it to outsource jobs overseas.  To make matters worse, WEDC gave one of the companies more even more money after the fact!

It's fair to criticize Burke for outsourcing jobs, but at least it was her company and her money.  But what Burke might have done pales in comparison to Walker using taxpayer dollars to do the very same thing.

There are two other things that make Walker's attack on Burke as impotent as his hair growth products.

One is that Walker had Trek featured on the WEDC website as one of Wisconsin's success stories.  Walker has become so hypocritical, even he doesn't know what he supports anymore.

The other thing is that his administration has come out singing the praises of outsourcing:

But a few short hours later, Gov. Walker's top economic official defended the practice of outsourcing.

"We are in a global marketplace and some companies, to be successful financially, need to outsource," said Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation CEO Reed Hall.

Hall was responding to questions about a 27 News story from last week, which showed at least two companies that received tax credits from WEDC later outsourced Wisconsin jobs to foreign countries.

A 27 News investigation uncovered that both the Eaton Corporation and Plexus Corporation received financial awards from WEDC, only to later lay off workers whose jobs were taken by employees at the companies' foreign facilities.

"I'm sorry that they temporarily had to outsource some jobs, but I think ultimately over the long-term its gonna be a great win for Wisconsin with both these companies," said Hall.

Needless to say, Walker has yet to find a strong point that he can successfully attack Burke. And the more he flails about like this, the more desperate he starts to look. That's not a good thing for an incumbent with just over three months to the election.

On a side note, I have a personal peeve with Walker's commercial.  If you watch his ad to the very end, Walker uses a version of my tag line of "There's more.  There's always more."

I knew I should have had that patented, dammit!  That dirty, thieving weasel!

The Real War on Christmas!

 

By Jeff Simpson

Recently fake journalist, and WPRI republican hack Christian Schneider wrote a column on the wonders of offshoring(in a defense of Mary Burke).   Apparently you have to be an adult to understand what a great thing it is:

But while the outsourcing issue is a Sheboygan-sized target on Burke's campaign, Republicans should avoid simply hammering her for the act of outsourcing itself. It is an easy tactic — and in the end, winning is all that matters, after all — but campaigns should be careful how they foment anger among voters. Especially if it means confusing the public about a nuanced issue that deserves an adult conversation.

First, a point of clarification: While Burke's detractors refer to "outsourcing," they really mean "offshoring." Companies "outsource" their operations to other businesses when it isn't cost-effective to do the work themselves. It's not as if Grimace and Mayor McCheese are at the McDonald's headquarters milking cows to produce the company's dairy creamers; they outsource that task to an actual dairy company.

"Offshoring," on the other hand, means moving jobs overseas, where products can be produced cheaper due to lower labor costs. For the workers whose jobs are moved to India, China or Mexico, offshoring — to use a technical economic term — "sucks."

 We at CogDis pointed out that Schneider is economic illiterate, which was of a surprise to no one.   What I failed to do though was point out the "real world"consequences of offshoring that no one seems to want to have an adult conversation about(hint: don't look to Schneider for adult conversations).  

 

1.  What is considered one of the most dangerous jobs in the world?  Bangladesh garment worker makes the list.    Who knew making your cheap T-shirt was so dangerous?  

In Bangladesh, there are 4 million garment workers — they’re getting starved to death too with pitiful wages, and they’re brutally overworked. And there are no health and safety standards. We saw the result of that in the Tazreen Factory fire on Nov. 24, 2012, which killed at least 117 workers. Less than a month later another factory, Smart Fashion, went up in flames.

 When we were in Bangladesh, a boy named Korshed —15 years of age — was working a night shift, all night long from 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. during the monsoon season. It was July 17, 2012, when in the middle of the night at 3:00 a.m. a gigantic metal slab fell and crushed this young kid. Killed, dead on the spot. There’s no health and safety records whatsoever, the workers are just sitting ducks.

 2.  A lady in Oregon bought cheap crap Halloween decorations from China and found a letter:

"People who work here have to work 15 hours a day without Saturday, Sunday break and any holidays. Otherwise, they will suffer torturement, beat and rude remark. Nearly no payment (10 yuan/1 month)."
Ten yuan is equivalent to $1.61.
"People who work here, suffer punishment 1-3 years averagely, but without Court Sentence (unlaw punishment). Many of them are Falun Gong practitioners, who are totally innocent people only because they have different believe to CCPG. They often suffer more punishment than others."

Schneider did get that right....$1.61/month is definitely cheaper labor.  See what happens when you get rid of the unions, companies are free to prosper!  Time for ACT11 to cut teacher pay again.  

3.   A reporter tried to see where her shirt was made in India and was lucky to make it out alive! 

 As a child, Aruna dreamed of going to college. But by the time she was 15, when her government-subsidized schooling ended, she understood that she was too poor. Then, a stranger promised to change her life. He offered her a job at a textile factory that has supplied companies including, until recently, UK-based maternity wear maker Mothercare. Her pay would be about $105 a month—enough for food for her family, her further education, and most importantly, the chance to build a dowry.


When Aruna arrived at the factory, about 40 miles from her home, she found a vast facility where close to 1,000 girls, many in their teens, lived 10 or 15 to a room. From 8 a.m. till 10 p.m. every day, including weekends, she fed and monitored rusty machines that spun raw cotton into yarn. Her bosses often woke her in the middle of the night because, she recalls, there was "always some sort of work, 24 hours a day." Aruna made just a quarter of the $105 a month she was promised, about $0.84 a day.

Aruna shows me a scar on her hand, more than an inch long, where a machine cut her. She often saw girls faint from standing for too long. One had her hair ripped out when it got caught in a machine. Others were molested by their supervisors. "They said we would get less work if we slept with them," Aruna says. Sometimes girls would disappear, and everyone would speculate whether they'd died or escaped. Still, she needed the money, so she worked there for two years.

 Last April's building collapse in Bangladesh's Rana Plaza, which killed more than 1,000, briefly drew attention to the plight of garment workers. India is an even larger global player than Bangladesh: It's the third-largest textile and garment exporter in the world (after China and the European Union), with about $29 billion in 2012 sales. Between June 2012 and June 2013, the United States imported about $2.2 billion worth of cotton clothing from India, and that number is expected to grow as India ramps up its textile industry.

 4.  In Jordan a factory that produces products for WalMart, sexual abuse is a way of life:

In June, the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights released a report alleging that workers producing clothing for Walmart, Target, Macy's, Kohl's and Hanes at a factory in Jordan have been routinely beaten, underpaid and forced to work hours in excess of what the local law allows. The report added that workers have been forced to live in bed bug-infested dormitories that lack heat and hot water, despite the snow and ice that are a feature of local winters.
The report also alleged a pattern of widespread sexual abuse of female employees at the Classic Brands factory complex. The factory employs some 4,800 people, mostly guest workers from South Asia. One manager repeatedly raped female Sri Lankan workers, prompting a strike late last year, according to the report. Workers wanted the manager fired. Instead, the factory's owner sent the manager on a recruiting mission to South Asia as a means of temporarily removing him from the complex. The owner did not publicly discipline the manager or remove the man from his employment, said Charles Kernaghan, the institute's director, and the lead author of the study.

Whats a few rapes of 13 year old girls, they aren't in school anyway.    When your working a 17 hour shift, 7 days a week,  its the only way they get a break.  

5.  There there was this clown that people actually thought could be President of the United States. 

 And the one thing that gets you mad is someone saying "Happy Holidays"?    

Good News and Bad News

By Jeff Simpson

H/T Jud Lounsbury:

The bad news first:


 

Mary Burke will have to answer for the outsourcing of jobs @ Trek, and As John Nichols points out, this issue is not dead and be prepared to get hit often by it.  

At least Christian Schneider thinks its great!   


The Good News:

Rob Zerban can use the same attacks on his opponent! 

Did Burke Outsource Jobs Or Not?

Daniel Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a report that Trek might have outsourced jobs to China:

If you're around Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke on the campaign trail, you're going to hear a lot about Trek Bicycles and the 1,000 jobs it has created in Wisconsin.

This you won't hear:

Trek — a company founded by Burke's father and a place she worked for nine years — is fighting a petition filed by a state official saying the firm outsourced some 15 to 20 jobs from its Waterloo plant to China earlier this year.

In August, Lynda Paasch, a staffer with the state Department of Workforce Development, submitted a petition for special federal aid for the former Trek workers through the Trade Adjustment Assistance program in the U.S. Department of Labor.

The program provides such benefits as government subsidies for job retraining and relocation expenses for people who have lost their jobs due to foreign competition or outsourcing.

Paasch wrote that most Trek employees working second and third shift making composite lugs and mountain bike frames were laid off March 16. These are the only layoffs the company has had this year.

"The Workers were told if production numbers would not start to rise, then Trek would have to close the line down and shift the line to China, after all the bike frames (were) produced," Paasch wrote. "The production numbers could not be met due to the decrease in orders."

Federal officials are currently investigating the matter to decide whether the ex-Trek employees are entitled to benefits.

A spokeswoman for the company said it is fighting the petition.

Sigh.

But to be fair, the timing of this story seems rather convenient, especially on the trail of the return of Walkergate.  But then again, I have been hearing about Trek outsourcing jobs for a long time, so it is equally plausible.

So far, the leading candidate in my mind is still "None of the above."

Mitt Romney's Job Plan!

Mitt Romney keeps telling us that he will create 12 million jobs. He will not tell us how, but he will, we just have to trust him!

Luckily for us, Mitt Romney has been running for president for the last 8 years so we can go back and see what he has had to say about jobs:

 And working conditions for those jobs??

Thanks Mitt, I knew you would tell us the details eventually!  

Mitt's Actual Thoughts on China!

Mitt Romney's latest ridiculous attack ad against President Obama now uses China as the topic!

The problem is no one believes Mitt because of his long history or sending American jobs over there to pad his own pocket!

 Thats why we all need Mitt's Tax returns, even he does not know where his money is!

This attack coming from Mitt is so laughable even the Chinese weighed in.

“It is rather ironic that a considerable portion of this China-battering politician’s wealth was actually obtained by doing business with Chinese companies before he entered politics,” Xinhua wrote.

“Such blaming-China-on-everything remarks are as false as they are foolish, for it has never been a myth that pushing up the value of China’s currency would be of little use to boost the chronically slack job market of the world’s sole superpower, not to mention to magically turn the poor U.S. economic performance around.” Xinhua said such China-bashing had been “a cancer in U.S. electoral politics, seriously plaguing the relations between the two countries.

Now if you want to know how much Mitt Romney really likes China, watch this video!!

Mitt Sings & America has the Blues!