Diane's Empty Dreams

By Jeff Simpson

Recently, the New York Times did a cheer leading piece on Diane Hendricks and how she is Reviving Beloit, WI.    

BELOIT, Wis. — When Diane Hendricks sees something she doesn’t like here, she buys it.

A bankrupt country club. A half-empty mall. Abandoned buildings. The rusting foundry down by the river.

Beloit used to be a town that made papermaking machines and diesel engines. Ms. Hendricks thinks it can be a place where start-ups create the next billion-dollar idea, and she is remaking the town to fit her vision.

The problem is Diane Hendrick's vision is blurry, extreme and very, very white.

The Times considers Diane to be a boom to Beloit because:

She took the library from its historic location downtown and resurrected it inside a failing mall at the edge of town, replacing the original with a performing arts center where dance and music students from Beloit College can study and perform each year. Then she scooped up nearly every building on a downtown block and knocked each one down, making way for a sushi restaurant, a high-quality burger joint and modern apartments with marble counter tops and exposed-brick walls. 

I agree that the downtown of Beloit, WI is looking nice, however, let us take a closer look at what is actually happening in Beloit.  

• The overall crime rate in Beloit is 24% higher than the national average.
• For every 100,000 people, there are 9.75 daily crimes that occur in Beloit.
• Poverty is almost double the statewide average.  
• Wisconsin has the 10th smallest percentage of Millennials in the country.  
• The Wisconsin brain drain is a serious problem.  
• Madison has a World Class University System, but GOP electeds take every chance they can to criticize the city, 
• The Legislature continues to attack legislatively, what makes the University strong. 

 While it is great to buy things for a few million dollars, when you are a billionaire, but FYI - that is not an economic plan. 

We have seen her economic plan for Wisconsin:

While Ms. Hendricks, has a vision of bringing start-ups to WI, the reality of her political vision is she is failing spectacularly.  Wisconsin, under Scott Walker (one of Diane's most high profile employees), has ranked dead last in business start up activity for the last three years!     On the bright side, we have no where to go but up!   

However for Ms. Hendricks, with help from the Governor, has to have an actual plan (tax cuts and cutting education is not one either).   

After discussing this topic with someone heavily invested in the Beloit Community:

There needs to be an economic development plan that let's millennials of color see a pathway to ownership through education. We need to economic development plans that are inclusive and not driven by fox valley. Millenials of color will stay in Wisconsin, if they can get a piece of the pie.

In Madison, there have been those opportunities in tech and health fields but we need to expand those opportunities beyond those two sectors to keep the best and brightest, regardless of color or history, want to stay in Wisconsin and actually help us grow from the ground up.

Bruce Murphy has a different take on this story in the NYT:

Yet Beloit, a classic Rustbelt town impacted by the decline of manufacturing, remains “deeply troubled” despite Hendricks’s efforts, the story notes, with high unemployment and boarded-up shops. “About a quarter of the population lives in poverty, twice the rate of residents in the rest of Rock County. One in every four children lives in poverty in the county.”

Which raises the question of whether Hendrick’s vision for America is one that leads to economic success for average Americans. Stevenson doesn’t report that Hendricks urged Gov. Scott Walker to go after private sector unions, or that the Right to Work law he signed has been found to lower average wages in stateswhere it has been passed. Stevenson doesn’t tell us how many employees at ABC Supply have family-supporting jobs.

Nor does Stevenson report that Hendricks didn’t pay a cent in state taxes from 2012 through 2014, or that tax cuts passed by Walker and Republicans went mostly to wealthy Wisconsinites like Hendricks, or that Hendricks has grossly underpaid her property taxes going back many years.

PS: To the author, Alexandra Stevenson, Instead of talking to Charley Sykes, maybe you should have gotten in touch with this former student who has had a problem with Ms. Hendricks serving as a Trustee for Beloit College and as a major member of the Trump team.

She was an early supporter of Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign here in Wisconsin, a state with a history of progressive politics, and that has pitted her against some current and former students at Beloit College, a liberal arts school and one of Beloit’s other big employers. (Ms. Hendricks sits on the college’s board of trustees.)    

I am available anytime!

Stupidity on Display

New Rule - if you have as a role model Steven Crowder or James O'Keefe, you are a threat to society!

2 people are vying for dumb ass of the day, and one just happens to be in Beloit, WI

The first incident is in Virginia:

A man was arrested at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Strasburg, Va., Wednesday, according to the Shenandoah County Sheriff’s Office.

Christopher Garret Johnson, 33, walked into the school with a 4-foot long two-by-four labeled “High Powered Rifle” about 11:40 a.m., the sheriff’s office said.

He was met by school staff, then detained by a sheriff’s school resource officer. He was arrested and taken into custody without incident.

No one was injured.

The man was apparently trying to make a point about security at the school five days after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in which a man shot and killed 20 children and six adults before killing himself.

"He made general statements about school safety and safety awareness," a Shenandoah County officer said. "But the reality was, it was disruptive."

The second comes courtesy of Beloit, WI:

 BELOIT, Wis. -
Beloit police arrested a man who posed as an intruder trying to enter a Beloit elementary school Tuesday, the Beloit School District said.
In the wake of the Connecticut mass shooting, a local citizen decided to test school security by trying to enter a side entrance at Converse Elementary School at 1602 Townline Ave., according to a Beloit School District news release.
Building doors are locked at all Beloit School District buildings, including front entrances, which are monitored, according to school officials.
A teacher at the scene reported seeing a camouflage-garbed man at a side entrance of the primary school (grades K-3) who was trying to forcibly open the doors, according to the news release.

If you pose as an intruder  - YOU ARE AN INTRUDER!   I hope these idiots get arrested and if you want to know who should NOT own guns - here are two prime examples!  

Look what Fox news has wrought on our country!

Diane Hendricks Has The Last Laugh!

Why is Diane Hendricks smiling(I think that is a smile)???

Because she bought a Governor and now pays ZERO DOLLARS in state income taxes in 2010! For a mere $510,000 in donations to her employee Scott Walker, she was able to freeload on our great state's economy.

An active financial supporter of conservative extreme right wing causes, Hendricks has given Walker's campaign more than $500,000, making her Walker's largest donor. Her state tax obligation dropped from $2.26 million for 2009 to zero for 2010 because of a change in the corporate structure of ABC Supply said Scott Bianchini, ABC tax director. The company paid taxes of $373,671 for the second half of 2010, the records show. Bianchini explained that before 2010, ABC Supply was an "S" corporation, meaning the profits and the tax obligation flowed to Hendricks as the owner of the firm. In 2010, the company changed its structure so the profits and the tax obligation stay with the company. "Now ABC is paying taxes on its own," Bianchini said. Hendricks' March net worth was estimated by Forbes Magazine to be $2.8 billion - some $300 million more than Helen Johnson-Leipold, chief executive of Johnson Outdoors Inc. The magazine last year listed Hendricks as No. 188 on its ranking of the wealthiest people in America, a spot that had her as the financial equal of William Randolph Hearst III.

I know the righties will be out in force saying that it was a change in tax code but maybe we can clarify that a little more.....

Bianchini declined to comment when asked whether Hendricks, who is chairman of ABC, had other income such as salary or dividends that could have been taxed in 2010. He also declined to say why ABC's tax bill in 2010 was so low compared with what Hendricks had paid on its behalf in prior years, when its profits flowed to her bottom line. "Diane is not willing to divulge any more," Bianchini said. "ABC converted to a 'C' corporation - that's a substantial part of why there's no 2010 tax liability (for Hendricks)." He added that there were other reasons Hendricks paid zero state income taxes in 2010. "We're just not willing to get into it," Bianchini said. "It's just digging, in our opinion, too deep into her taxes." Hendricks, who worked with her husband, Kenneth, in building ABC, became chairman of the company after her husband died in 2007. The company now posts annual revenue of more than $4 billion.

Thanks but no thanks, the ydo not care to explain any more reason why they are freeloading on the taxpayers of Wisconsin and especially the taxpayers of Beloit. By the way want to see what happens in a community when the richest do not pay their fair share??? The community has to get together and pony up even more money to make the community work for all. The citizens of Beloit just agreed to a $70 million dollar school referendum to make sure their children are well educated and prepared for the future. Kudos to the citizens of Beloit, WI and shame on Diane Hendricks!!! Maybe if she spent less time trying to "divide and conquer" our state and more to actually paying for her services we would not have such a big structural deficit!

Divide and Conquer!!

A new video is out with Scott Walker talking to one of his masters, The widow Diane Hendricks, who has given at least $510,000 to the Walker campaign/defense fund!


VIDEO HERE

This video is shot BEFORE  he dropped the bomb on the people of Wisconsin with ACT10.  So he knew what he was doing all the time(He just forgot to tell us).

JSOnline is breaking this story and clip by Documentary filmmaker Brad Lichtenstein.

In the video, Hendricks told Walker she wanted to discuss "controversial" subjects away from reporters, asking him:
"Any chance we'll ever get to be a completely red state and work on these unions -"
"Oh, yeah," Walker broke in.
"- and become a right-to-work?" Hendricks continued. "What can we do to help you?"
"Well, we're going to start in a couple weeks with our budget adjustment bill," Walker said. "The first step is we're going to deal with collective bargaining for all public employee unions, because you use divide and conquer. So for us, the base we get for that is the fact that we've got - budgetarily we can't afford not to. If we have collective bargaining agreements in place, there's no way not only the state but local governments can balance things out . . . That opens the door once we do that. That's your bigger problem right there."

Of course Scott Walker has let it be known in no uncertain terms that he does not support right to work legislation, at least in public.  

Walker co-sponsored right-to-work legislation in 1993 as a freshman in the state Assembly but as governor has consistently downplayed seeking any restrictions on private unions in public statements.
"From our standpoint, it's never going to get to me," Walker said of right-to-work legislation in an interview with the Journal Sentinel on April 27. "Private sector unions are my partner in economic development."

Of course to someone as money hungry as Scott Walker is $510,000 + speaks volumes!  

This clip comes from the documentary "As Goes Janesville""

Lichtenstein is now promoting his finished documentary, "As Goes Janesville," which is expected to be shown at film festivals and on PBS stations this fall. Lichtenstein was preparing to film a Rock County 5.0 meeting that Walker was to attend when Hendricks said she was going to greet Walker personally when he came in. Lichtenstein said he asked to join her and she agreed.
On Thursday, Barrett said Walker's exchange with Hendricks shows the governor will say one thing to the public and another to his top-tier donors.

I think this documentary will be a very popular one in the upcoming weeks in WI.

Its could be an even bigger catch than this one:

 
UPDATE:  There will be a showing of this documentary:

Wednesday, May 16, 2012
5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Discovery World
500 North Harbor Drive
Milwaukee, WI