What Could've, Would've, Should've Been

The City of Milwaukee, like Milwaukee County, was having a lot of problems with workers being injured on the job.

But the way the two governments approached this problem couldn't have been any more different.

They City of Milwaukee took the problems head on and developed programs to closely monitor injuries, develop plans to reduce the risks and ways to get workers back on duty sooner so they miss less days of work. The result was a major decrease in injuries, missed work days and cost to the tax payers.

Meanwhile, the County not only ignored the issue, but actually went on to exasperate the problem by making work environments more dangerous, in the name of "saving tax payer's money."

Guess which leader got elected?

And Wisconsin's embarrassment continues.

Little Big Town

Who'd have ever thunk that Oshkosh was bigger than New York City?

The Church Bell Chimed Until It Rang Twenty-nine Times

Thirty-five years ago today.

Food For Thought

For the right wingers that think last week's election gives Scott "Train Wreck" Walker some sort of mandate, think about this:

In Milwaukee County, Tom Barrett won 62%-38% over Walker.

These are the people that know both men and chose who would make the better leader for this state. The rest of the state just didn't know what we already do.

But they will. They will.

Any guesses when the voter's remorse starts to kick in?

RoJo: A Mountain Of Fail

Thanks, Ron Johnson, for adding to our national embarrassment from last week:



That's great. Just great.

Source

Train Wreck Walker Still On The Wrong Track

In the shuffling madness
Of the locomotive breath
Runs the all-time loser
Headlong to his death.
He feel the pistons scraping--
Steam breaking from his brow--
Thank God, he stole the handle and
The train won't stop going--
No way to slow down

-Jethro Tull "Locomotive Breath"

Talk about slow learners.

Yesterday, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood made it clear to Scott "Train Wreck" Walker that the funding for high speed rail, by federal law, is meant for high speed rail only, and not to reward his magnanimous road builder campaign donors.

Today, U.S. Representative Gwen Moore re-emphasized the point. Even his ally, U.S. Representative Tom Petri told him that it's not going to happen. Republican darling, Paul Ryan, won't climb aboard Walker's Train Wreck Express.

Businessmen in Wisconsin are telling Walker they want HSR to come to Wisconsin so they can remain competitive. Some people have even called Walker's opposition to HSR as "economic treason."

So how does ol' Train Wreck respond to this growing groundswell of support for HSR and the undeniable fact that his oppositional stance is folly?

He responds the same way he always has. He ignores the people and the facts and clings to his irresponsible and irrational ideology. Not only does he not blink before reality, but he stokes the engines on his crazy train and fires off a letter to Secretary LaHood not only continuing to pursue his own vainglorious publicity stunt, but shows himself to be totally delusional. In Walker's eyes, because he and two other fools don't like to have the train, he says that the federal government should just scrap the whole push for a nationwide rail system:

I strongly encourage the federal government to halt all investments in new passenger rail lines and instead devote this funding to state and local road projects. All across the country, in states like Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida, the voters chose new governors who are opposed to diverting transportation funding to passenger rail. I believe it would be unwise for the Obama Administration to ignore the will of the voters.

Too bad for Train Wreck Walker that this isn't the case. New York State's Governor Elect Andrew Cuomo has already put dibs on the funding that should be Wisconsin's. State officials in Illinois, and yes, even Florida, have expressed desire to get that HSR funding.

And for something that no one wants and no one will ride, according to Walker and his acolytes, it sure seems to be doing really well in Minnesota and Illinois. I wonder how Walker will respond to his old buddy, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, when he tells Walker to stop hurting his state's economy with his ideological grandstanding.

I foresee only three real possible outcomes from this. One, Walker will cave to reality and allow the HSR to be built, using some lame excuse to cover his butt. The other option is that he emulates his hero, George W. Bush, and alienates the state from any possible bonhomie with our neighbors for the sake of his misguided ideology. The third is one of the smarter governors, like Cuomo, takes a page from Tom Barrett's playbook and just takes matters into his own hands and gets the feds to walk away from Walker.

The first outcome will only cost him a little political face, which he could easily recover from in short order, and possibly make it play out in his favor. The other two would cost the state any chance of economic recovery in the near future, including hundreds of millions of dollars being squandered and thousands of jobs being lost.

Whether Walker's continued grandstanding is due to political pandering, ideological obstinacy or just plain obtuseness, well, there is a word for that kind of behavior.

And that word is not leadership.

Walker Is Already On The Wrong Side Of The Tracks

Yowza! I take a few days off to do some work up north, only to come back and find that in just days after winning the election on his false promises of saving money and creating jobs, Scott Walker has already tied himself to the railroad tracks in front of an oncoming high speed train.

Because of his tantrums over the high speed rail that was going to make Wisconsin part of a nationwide system, all work on the rail has stopped as Governor Doyle said that he will leave it to his successor to work out how he is going to fix the problems that Walker himself created.

Walker's grandstanding on an issue that he clearly doesn't understand, there has been a lot of fallout in such a short amount of time.

Talgo, the company that came to Milwaukee to build the trains, has threatened to pull up stakes and move elsewhere. Walker quickly responded to this threat and begged Talgo not to go, saying that no decisions to kill HSR in Wisconsin were written in stone. Needless to say, this caused quite an uproar among his base. True to his nature, Walker flip-flopped again saying that he was again opposed to HSR in Wisconsin and was going to kill it.

Meanwhile, Andrew Cuomo, Governor Elect of the State of New York, has already called dibs on the federal funding that would have come to Wisconsin. Showing that Cuomo's efforts might not be in vain and to reinforce what the Democrats have been saying for months, Transportation Secretary LaHood had to explain to Walker that he could not use the rail funding for other purposes, like giving it to the road builders who donated so generously to Walker's campaign.

To add to the misery, if Walker gets his way and the train is stopped, it would immediately cost Wisconsin tax payers $100 million up front for the broken contracts, maintenance of train sheds and a new facility to maintain the Hiawatha trains. Just as, if not more importantly, Walker's conniption fit could lead to the loss of 400 jobs. In a larger picture mode, killing HSR would cost an estimated 5,500 construction jobs.

Before adding to his self-induced pain, perhaps Walker should consult with his hero and good buddy, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, whose Walkeresque grandstanding has just nailed his overburdened state's budget for a whopping $271 million due to his pulling out of a rail program in the Garden State.

The truly frustrating part of all this is that Walker is willing to throw away all of this money and all of these jobs for a lousy $750,000 a year. Any self-respecting business person would jump at the chance for that kind of turn around on an investment.

Either way, Walker will end up already breaking one of his campaign promises. Either he is going to set the state backwards by refusing the jobs and inflow of money or he is going to allow the train to go through and rile up his TEApublican base.

No one should be surprised that Walker has already made such a mess of things. All one had to do was take a honest look at this history to know that he is all show and no substance. Why do you think that he got his clocked cleaned in Milwaukee County last week? It's because we already know him all too well.

But I have to ask: Is it too soon to say, "I told you so!"?

The Election Is Over, Now Leaf Me Alone

By the time you read this, the polls will have closed.

I don't know who will when or lose, and I don't make predictions. After all, I'm not a witch, and I can't see into the future.

But whether the people vote for continued recovery with Tom Barrett and Russ Feingold or they decide to take the country into a full blown economic depression with Scott Walker and Ron Johnson, there is one thing I do know for certain.

Neither Tom Barrett, Scott Walker, Ron Johnson, Ron Johnson or any other politician or any other campaign worker will be going to my place up north to help clean up the acre and a half worth of leaves that have fallen in the last couple of weeks. Nor will they be helping clearing the branches and limbs that fell with last week's windstorm.

So, given that the weather, for now, is beautiful, I have gone off line to go up and tend to things myself. What that means for you, dear reader, is that I will be offline for some days, and not posting anything, responding to emails, or checking comments.

I'm sure that many pundits on both sides will be explaining the election results ad nauseum, whether their side won or lost. All I know is that we will continue to fight to make things better for everyone, no matter who's in and who's out.

It will be interesting to see just how many readers I lose now that the election is over. I will predict that the fall off will be more than 50%. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I go back to my base of 4.3 readers. And I'm OK with that.

I just hope I don't end up like this little guy:

Have a good week everyone.

When You Vote Today

Jib wants us to remember this when we vote:

...just remember that your current government is well on the way to stagflating us to prosperity!

What he doesn't want us to remember is that the party he is promoting is the one that got us into the abyss in the first place.

Apparently the right feels bad about the number on the economy that they did, and wants a second chance to drive it all the way into ruination.

Happy Election Day

Now go tick off a Republican and vote!

If you don't know where to vote, you can find out here.

Gregory Stanford on Scott Walker

Read the whole thing, which can be summarized as "Walker is a hypocrite."

Michael Brickman Behaving Poorly

This is a bit dated, from the primary season, but I stumbled across it while working on a previous post.

If this how Walker's team treats fellow conservatives, how do you think his administration would treat the people of a progressive state like Wisconsin?

Here's another clue on how they would treat us.

He Earned Those Demerit Badges

One of the repeated background memes coming from Team Walker is that Scott Walker was a boy scout. They build on that by his claiming that he learned to leave things cleaner than the way he found it. Normally, that would mean that when you go into the woods, don't leave your trash or other messes behind.

But if his record as county executive is any record, Walker must have been a lousy boy scout.

Let's take a look at some of the Boy Scouts Merit Badges and see how well Walker did or didn't do:

American Business: Walker stood against Milwaukee County businesses when he actively opposed getting a dedicated funding source for the transit system. He did further harm to the businesses when he kept slashing bus routes and raising fares, making it much more difficult, if not impossible, for workers to get to their jobs or for customers making it to the businesses. Walker earns a demerit badge.

Disability Awareness: One does not have to look any farther than the way Walker has harmed the safety networks and services for people with mental health issues. First there was a series of stories in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about Walker's failure to provide services for the mentally ill living in the community. Now we are seeing the implosion of the mental health complex. Walker should earn two demerit badges for this one.

American Labor: Another one that we don't need to look to far to see Walker's failures. He has repeatedly tried to illegally coerce the unions into capitulating to illegal budgets. Not only that, but he as separated tens of thousands of workers from their jobs with his myopic and irresponsible cuts to transit. Yet another demerit badge.

Safety: Giving Sheriff Deputies eight furlough days, allowing female patients be sexually assaulted in the mental health complex, allowing patients at the mental health complex escape and attacking neighboring residents, parts falling off the courthouse, parts falling off O'Donnell Park, parts falling off the airport all lead up to a big, old demerit badge for Walker regarding safety.

Landscape Architecture and Nature: Despite his promise to preserve the county grounds and its unique natural phenomenon, the Monarch Trail, Walker sold this valuable green space at cut rate prices so that some developer/campaign contributors could build a strip mall and a hotel. Double the demerit badges.

Home Repairs: See Safety, deferred maintenance and give him a demerit badge.

Railroading: He still doesn't understand that the high speed rail will bring jobs and put Wisconsin in the middle of a cross country transportation network. Demerit badge, for sure.

Rifle Shooting and Shotgun Shooting: Need I say any more? Demerit!

But there is one area that Walker does rightfully earn a real merit badge: Radio. The way he would run to Charlie Sykes, Vicki McKenna and Mark Belling every time he got in trouble, we can give him this one.

Kleefisch Stands By Anti-Gay Bigotry

In the spring of this year, during a radio interview, Republican nominee for Lieutenant Governor made a very damning anti-gay comment, comparing gay marriage to marrying inanimate objects or an animal.

Facing a statewide wave of outrage, Kleefisch apologized, in a fashion:

Kleefisch is the running mate of County Executive Scott Walker. His campaign spokeswoman issued this statement, from Kleefisch: “My comments were meant to relay my concern with redefining marriage. I never intended to sound insensitive, and have the utmost respect for all people. I apologize for my poor choice of words.”

Note that she never apologized for her bigotry, just her "choice of words." Apparently instead of table, clock and a dog, she meant to compare gay marriage to marrying a sofa, lampshade and an aardvark.

Also noteworthy is the fact that Scott Walker never condemned the statement. In fact, the only comment he made towards the whole fiasco is that he accepted Kleefisch's apology. I don't quite understand what gives him the idea that he speaks for the homosexuals, but whatever.

Not everyone is accepting her phony apology. Her own uncle, who is gay, was so offended that he gave $500 to the Barrett/Nelson campaign, and today came out with an endorsement for Tom Barrett and Tom Nelson.

Even the Appleton Post-Crescent saw through her irresponsible, hateful attitude, and has endorsed Barrett/Nelson.

To make matters worse, she was just on the Charlie Sykes show this morning and said that she "was sorry that some people were angry" but her focus is on other things. That is her own family that she is summarily dismissing.

If Walker and Kleefisch don't even care about their own families, how can anyone expect them to care about us?

Scott Walker Would Turn This State Around

One of Scott Walker's favorite lines during the campaign season is how he would take bold action to "turn the state around," claiming that Wisconsin is heading in the wrong direction.

But lets see what has been going on for the past week to see just in what direction the state is actually going:

• 55 employers are looking to add 700 jobs, causing the City of West Allis to assist by holding a job fair this coming Thursday.
• Jobless claims have fallen to a three-month low.
• QuadGraphics is adding 1,300 jobs.
• Bucyrus is looking to hire 515 new workers (it would be easier for them if a bus line went there).

Over 2500 jobs being announced as coming to Wisconsin in just one week. That seems to me to be a good thing. Why on earth would Walker want to turn that around?

It should also be noted that the Bucyrus jobs were made possible by the hard work of Tom Barrett and Russ Feingold, while Scott Walker felt it to be better to just use the peril to take cheap political shots.

Who do you want to be governor? The guy who works hard at bringing jobs to the state or the guy who thinks that more jobs is a bad thing and would "turn it around?"