The Solution To Milwaukee County's Furlough Problem

Milwaukee County has a big problem thanks to Scott Walker.  One that could cause real fiscal mayhem to the county.

But first, for those that haven't been following the goings on in Milwaukee County under the Walker regime, some background.  And for those that have been following, please consider it a refresher.

In 2009, from the onset of the fiscal year, then Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker was claiming that the county was in a fiscal crises due to his budget.  The problem was that he was demanding a lot of concessions from county workers, but refused to sit down and negotiate said concessions with the unions.

Reports at the time calculated that Walker was squandering anywhere from a third to half a million dollars a month due to unseen savings because of his posturing.

In other words, he constructed his own artificial crisis and now was running around crying that the sky was falling.

At midyear, Walker said that the only way to resolve the supposed fiscal crisis was to put all county workers on an indefinite five-hour a week work reduction.

As one might imagine, the unions protested this and took it to arbitration, claiming Walker violated good faith bargaining and that this stunt was a violation of the contract.

The arbitrator heard the case and ruled in favor of the unions and then some.  During the hearing it came out that Walker exceeded his authority in trying to impose an indefinite reduction of pay, that he acted illegally when he made this unilateral decision, and that it was indeed in violation of previous arbitration decisions which limited the reduced work time by 45 hours.

The real kicker was when it was also revealed that Walker was lying through his teeth when he claimed there was a $15 million deficit.  His own fiscal guy, Steve Kreklow, said that it was $5 million and the County Auditor, Jerome Heer, found it to be under a million dollars.  Neither of those numbers would qualify as a crisis in a budget of more than $1.5 billion.

Unthwarted, Walker took the ruling to circuit court, where a Republican judge ruled in his favor and voided the finding of the arbitrator.  The union responded by appealing this ruling.  In a ruling written by the Honorable Ralph Adam Fine, the appellate court ruled that according to the law, the arbitrator's decision was final unless fraud could be proven and thereby voided the lower court's ruling.

During all of these court hearings, Walker devised his 2010 budget and guess what, did the same illegal thing.  This time, instead of shortened work weeks, he decided to just implement full day furloughs.

And not only did he follow the same illegal actions, he doubled down by implementing them illegally.  Besides just exceeding the allowed amount of time, he treated various employees differently.  He gave deputies eight days of furlough, some other workers like the staff at the mental health complex 12 days and others, such as myself, a full 26 days.  Sometimes, people in the same Local were getting the different treatment.

(Ironically, the money that Walker claimed would be saved by this illegal action was eaten up by having to pay other workers overtime to make up for the loss of work hours.  Some workers were able to actually come ahead on this deal, making more money than they lost due to the overtime and still getting days off.)

So the unions took their complaint to the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC), and well, as I told it at the time:

Walker and the County Board continued to pass budgets that presumed these savings despite the fact these concessions were never negotiated.  Milwaukee County First warned at the time that the budgets were illegal and that the tax payers would be on the hook for them. 

The unions would in turn file complaints with the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC).  The county asked WERC to drop the complaints saying that it belonged in arbitration.  The unions agreed and dropped the complaints.  However, Walker then backstabbed the unions by refusing to go to arbitration. 

So the unions, with no other alternative, went back to WERC and refiled their complaint.
Last Friday, WERC handed out there ruling regarding the complaint about furloughs and about whether the county was participating in bad faith bargaining. 

In a nutshell, the furloughs were done illegally and the county was found to be guilty of bad faith bargaining.

WERC ruled that the county had to pay the workers back pay for all the furlough time in excess of the 45 hours allowed through arbitration.  Not only did they have to pay it back, but WERC also imposed a penalty of 12% interest, compounded daily, for every day until they do pay it back.

And that is where the problem comes in.  The ruling means that the county owes the workers millions in back pay. With the interest figured in, it's probably about $5 or $6 million by now, maybe even higher.

But thanks to Walker's dishonest budgeting as county executive and his slashing funding to the county as governor, Milwaukee County just doesn't have the money to pay this debt.

Over a year ago, I had written something that seems rather prophetic today, suggesting a way for current Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele and the Milwaukee County Board could meet its obligation without sticking it to the taxpayers or endangering our most vulnerable citizens by cutting services even further:

This means that the original arbitration is indeed to be held up.  This could the cost the County millions of dollars in back pay for excessive furloughs given to county workers. 

Because the County cannot afford such a large payout, it is possible that this will instead weaken the County’s position in contract negotiations, with the unions holding it as a bargaining chip. This, of course, could end up costing the tax payers dearly. 

Using the Mercer trial as a precedent, where Mercer had to pay the county for giving bad advice regarding the pension scandal, Scott Walker’s campaign should have to pay the county back for the damages it occurred directly due to Walker’s campaign stunt.  As further evidence that this was nothing more than a political stunt, Walker’s campaign regularly touted his use of these furlough days to gain the supposed surplus for that year.

The Mercer decision was one where the county sued Mercer for giving bad advice regarding Tom Ament's pension scandal.  Worth noting is the fact that Walker, who has spent years badmouthing his predecessor and the County Board for "their greed," changed his tune for this and blamed everything on this company, thereby, in effect, declaring his predecessor and the board innocent.  (Of course, like all things Walker, even this has a scandal involved with it.)

When I wrote the above passage, I didn't really think that the county would proceed with suing Walker and/or his campaign.  After all, even though Walker's actions were obviously a campaign stunt, there was no proof of it.

Until now.

Cory Liebmann, one of the most knowledgeable people in all things Walker, put up a post regarding some of Walker's emails from 2009.  Most notable of these was this one which Liebmann accurately describes (emphasis his):

An email that appears to be from Cynthia Archer to Walker at his campaign email address (and copying other staff...including Walker campaign consultant RJ Johnson). In that email she spells out their various "options" after a greatly anticipated arbitration hearing. It looks like Walker then takes that Archer email and forwards it from his campaign account to his county account.

You can see the actual email (starting on page 5) in a Scribd format, again thanks to Liebmann.

In summary, Walker imposed these excessive furlough days despite having a ruling deeming them illegal and despite refusing to negotiate with the unions creating an artificially constructed fiscal emergency.  And Walker did these things knowingly and what is obvious from the above email, as I had correctly stated all that time ago, he did so not for the purposes of saving the county taxpayers any money nor to fix any fiscal crisis, but he did this only to enhance his image as a candidate for governor. This is shown in the concerns expressed by Archer in her email and the fact that it was sent to his campaign email and included a campaign consultant.

I once again urge County Executive Abele and the County Board to look into this and consider trying to recoup the losses Walker forced onto Walker for illegal purposes. They could do so by suing Walker and the Friends of Scott Walker, which has ample funds to pay the bill.

Granted, they probably couldn't get everything they owe the workers, due to the interest accrued as they stalled paying what they were ordered to pay, but it would still be a large chunk of it.  It would be worth at least looking into.

Homophobia Run Amok

A collection of nutjobs misnaming themselves as "American Family Association" and their offshoot "One Million Moms" are on a rampage against gays.  This time they after JCPenney for daring to have Ellen Degeneres as a spokesperson.

If you look at their history, they should just be calling themselves Bigots'Я'Us.

Who To Root For In The Superbowl?

With it being Superbowl Sunday, many in Packer Nation are at a loss, not knowing what to do with themselves since the Packers won't be in it.

Some are not watching it altogether.  Those that are watching it don't know who to root for in the game.

Well, let's take a look at who's playing.

Repping the AFC are the New England Patriots.  Normally, when one thinks of patriots, they think of American heroes that fought to gain and then to keep our freedom, our liberty and our sovereignty.   Sadly, the term "patriot" has been bastardized by the teahadists, who have misapplied the term to themselves.  Now patriots leaves a bad taste in most people's mouths.  Ergo, patriots = teahadists = hating America = bad.

On the other side, repping the NFC are the New York Giants.  The word giant has become a common word in Wisconsin during the past year, mostly used in the reference of "Scott Walker has awoken the sleeping giant."  Thus giant has come to be associated with the good people of Wisconsin, commonly referred to on Twitter as #wiunion, who want to take their state back from the big-money special interest corporations that want to turn the state into a third or fourth world area, just in order to increase their profit margins.  Ergo, giants = #wiunion = loving Wisconsin, freedom and justice = good.

In conclusion, GO GIANTS!

ADDENDUM: Called it!

Voter Fraud Found Just Where You'd Expect It

The Republicans are notorious for accusing their opponents of committing wrongdoings that they themselves are the real culprits.

Whether it's the misuse of government property or voter fraud:

Indiana's top elections official could lose his job and his freedom after jurors convicted him of multiple voter fraud-related charges on Saturday, leaving in flux the fate of one of the state's most powerful positions.

Republican Secretary of State Charlie White has held on to his office for more than a year despite being accused of lying about his address on voter registration forms.

A Hamilton County jury found White guilty of six of seven felony charges, including false registration, voting in another precinct, submitting a false ballot, theft and two counts of perjury. He was acquitted on one fraud charge.

And even though caught red-handed, the scumball won't stand down. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

And while we're on the subject, what the heck is Scott Fitzgerald doing, sending out postcards to the people who signed the petition to recall his sorry butt?

That sounds suspiciously like voter caging to me, and I'm doubt that I'm the only one.

Walkergate: Is This It?!

As is the norm for any politician who has bad news to share and wants to try to control the early spin, Scott Walker did a Friday afternoon news dump.

In this case, his campaign sent out a very terse, carefully worded and ambiguous press release indicating that he would be meeting with the Milwaukee County District Attorney in regards to Walkergate, the John Doe probe into illegal campaign activities and other misdeeds among his office as county executive and his campaign:

Over the last 20 months, District Attorney John Chisholm has been conducting an examination of issues in connection with former employees of Milwaukee County. Throughout that time, our campaign has cooperated with requests for information.

My cooperation in this matter extends beyond a willingness to supply any and all requested documents. I have already said that I would be happy to sit down with the people looking into these issues and answer any additional questions they may have. To make that point clear, last year, my representatives voluntarily contacted Mr. Chisholm’s office to arrange a time to discuss any outstanding issues. I will be voluntarily meeting with Mr. Chisholm.

To assemble additional background information, I hired counsel to insure that I am in the best position possible to continue aiding the inquiry. These attorneys, Mike Steinle and John Gallo, have been reviewing a great deal of material from the past few years, but no public money has been used or will be used for these purposes.

While all of us need to let this matter run its course, I will continue to cooperate and provide any appropriate information that is requested.

When this news hit the airwaves, I had people, some who were off vacationing in Florida, calling me, asking me, "Is this it?! Are they going to finally nail that dirtbag scum?!"

My answer to them was that it sure didn't look good for him, but cautioning that you never could be sure.

In his press release, as is always the case with Walker, what he doesn't say is at least as important as what he does say.

Walker basically admits that, contrary to what he's said before, he's been in contact with the DA's office at least two months ago regarding the investigation. He's also tells us that he had retained these two top-gun attorneys a while ago for them to pore over everything and develop a defense strategy.

Maybe the real tell to the release was the way Walker emphasized that no public money was going to his defense. By this, he's basically admitting that Walkergate is weighing heavy against him.

Also significant is who his attorneys are.

One of them, Mike Steinle, has quite a legacy. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, he has a prestigious heritage and that his father defended crime boss Frank Balistrieri. Likewise, the Wisconsin State Journal reports that he also represented a Fox Point teen who killed his grandfather with an ax.

One Wisconsin Now also pointed out to the way Walker is lawyering up in a really big way with this interesting tidbit (emphasis mine):

Gov. Walker’s announcement that he’s beefing up his legal team with attorneys specializing in complex criminal law and real estate is just the latest twist in the scandal that’s engulfed his administration over these last twenty months.

The fact that one of them is a specialist in real estate law raises a red flag.

Not too long ago, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported about an angle of the Walkergate investigation that involved a shady bid-rigging and pay-for-play politicking. The story is fairly complex, but to simplify it, investigators were looking into some suspicious behaviors regarding a decision on where to house the Milwaukee County Department of Aging.

The Department of Aging was housed at the Reuss Federal Plaza in downtown Milwaukee from 2005-2010. In 2010, the county moved out of the Reuss building and into a county-owned building. However, in 2005 and again in 2010, there was some suspicious things being done to first get the agency to move in and then to stay.

And the agents in the case are people the gentle reader should already be aware of. One of them is Andrew Jensen, the commercial realty broker who was a guest of the county jail for a couple of days last year for not cooperating with the investigation. Another player was John Hiller, who was Walker's campaign treasurer for 18 years until mysteriously leaving last spring. (Hiller's departure was not even known until the fall, that's how secretive it was.)

Also entangled in this deal was Timothy Russell who seems to be in just about every mess there is in Walkergate and Bob Dennik, another Walker campaign worker turned county staff person. Both of these men wee also into realty. (I believe that Jim Villa, who was named in the Kelly Rindfleisch complaint, and is also a realty broker, was Walker's Chief of Staff at time.

I would take this moment to remind the gentle reader about the cozy relationship the realtors have with each other as well as with Walker.

So, to recap, Walker has both his campaign as well himself personally well-lawyered with some of the highest profile attorneys in the Midwest. His former and current staff, up to the highest levels, have either been charged or given immunity in relation to the John Doe, which has gone everywhere from illegal politicking to illegal donations and possibly pay-for-play.

While his apologists will be quick to point out that Walker himself has not yet been charged with any wrongdoings, there are a few facts to keep in mind:

• He is surrounded by the people being charged with wrongdoing or given immunity,
• In the things we do know for certain, there are holes in the story.  These holes appear to be most logically filled by Walker's involvement, 
• There was the infamous email from Walker to Russell, after Russell has already left the county executive's office, mentioning specific issues such as laptops and websites,
• There are some very questionable, even incriminating, emails that Walker had in 2009 involving both his county and campaign emails and the intermingling of the two.

Overall, it's pretty damning.

But it doesn't necessarily guarantee that this is Walker's Waterloo.

One must remember that the John Doe has already taken surprising twists, such as the recent charging of Supervisor Johnny Thomas, for allegedly taking a bribe to get a contract with the county approved.  There also may be other supervisors who under investigation.  But this still wouldn't necessarily exclude Walker from also being in deep water.

Another possibility is that Walker is going to be testifying against some of his former and/or current staffers and/or campaign workers.  The problem with that theory is that it doesn't explain the high level of lawyers.

Overall, one could safely say that Walker is a person of interest.  Whether he's John Doe or not has yet to be seen.  The same goes for whether this actually means that Walker is going to even get charged.  The events of Friday don't prove that.

But they sure make it seem likely, don't they?

Scotty, We're Coming For You!

Live from the Malt House, Madison, WI:



The Kissers

The Walker Budget Is Already Working! Part LXIX

At long last, Scott Walker's nightmare of constantly being hounded about the six months of jobs losses is soon to be finally over.

Now we can start hounding him about what looks like will be seven straight months of job losses:

Nationally, jobless claims dropped by 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 367,000 in the week ended Jan. 28, the U.S. Labor Department said today.

The four-week average of claims fell by 2,000, to 375,750. The monthly average remains near a four-year low and stands at a level that usually suggests a healing labor market.
However, the initial claims in Wisconsin surged last week to 15,045 from 13,957 in the previous week, according to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.

The number of ongoing weekly claims in Wisconsin rose last week to 126,212 from 123,620 in the previous week.

The monthly numbers won't be out for a couple of weeks, but this sure doesn't look good for him, or for us. Too many people have lost their jobs in the past several months.

Whether it's the recall or the indictment, we can't be rid of him soon enough.

Grandma Didn't Need Her House Anyway

Remember how Scott Walker said that he balanced the budget without raising taxes?  Well, he didn't and he did.

We already know that the budget isn't balanced, by Walker's own admission.

And we already know that he raised taxes, especially among the poorest of the poor.

Now we know he is really sticking it to Grandma:

Last year, however, Gov. Scott Walker and the Legislature reversed that decision, freezing the credit at its current level. That move was projected to save the state $14 million over the next two years.

As a result, a senior living on Social Security will now see their tax credit drop by $209, or 28 percent, over the next five years, according to an analysis by the Wisconsin Budget Project, an initiative of the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families. The full report is available here.

Other seniors will lose the tax credit altogether, the group warns, because their Social Security income will increase while the level for the Homestead Credit eligibility stays frozen. That could push many recipients out of the program entirely.

"This is money that will come out of seniors' pockets," said Budget Project research analyst Tamarine Cornelius in a statement. "The effect will be relatively small at first but will continue to snowball."

The Budget Project estimates the Homestead Credit by 2016 will cover only 16 percent of a Wisconsin senior's property taxes. That's down from 25 percent in 2011.
Twenty years ago, the Homestead Credit would have covered nearly 60 percent of that same person's property tax bill, the report says.

Nothing says "I love seniors!" like raising their taxes and cutting their SeniorCare.

I think that kind of cements the notion that Walker's not going to Florida to lure the retirees back after all. Or maybe this is just the way he intended to get them to "invest" their money in Wisconsin businesses, since that's who Walker is giving Grandma's medicine money to.

It also shows how dumb Walker really is. In the face of an inevitable recall, he will now have to face a very powerful voting bloc of pissed off seniors. All of his jetting around the country, kissing up to the big time donors won't help save his worthless political hide.

Money doesn't vote.

But Grandma does.

Big Bird Will Be Next

"Is that Big Bird on that grill?!"

State Representative Joel Kleefisch (R-Back of the minivan) apparently missed the news that Wisconsin is still leaking jobs like a sieve, has a stagnant economy and that people are really suffering.

Otherwise, Kleefisch wouldn't be wasting time and taxpayer money to come up with the bird-brained idea of having a hunting season for sandhill cranes.  Kleefisch said that his concern is that the cranes are doing to much damage to farmers' crops, but then reveals his real reason:

"They not only make great table fare, often they are called 'the ribeye of the sky,'" said Rep. Joel Kleefisch, R-Oconomowoc. "With our hunting heritage in this state, we thought we'd look at a sandhill crane hunting season."

Apparently those mourning doves just don't fill him up enough, or maybe their just too much of a challenge for a poor marksman.

Whatever the reason Kleefisch feels that he needs to pass this moronic bill, it's not going to do anything but feed him, according to the experts:

The International Crane Foundation hasn't taken a position on the bill, but Barzen said science shows hunting is not the answer.

"In order to control crop damage by removing cranes from the population, you'd probably have to remove a significant portion of the crane population, and nobody is really proposing to do that," said Barzen.

Instead, Barzen said treating crop seeds can keep cranes away. More than 76,000 acres were treated by Wisconsin farmers last year. Some farmers said that only pushes cranes to other fields, and doesn't control the population. But wildlife experts said cranes won't migrate far and instead will find other food sources.

I think the real reason that Kleefisch wants to do this is to help appeal to the wingnut base in order to save his wife's job. Because if she loses her job, she'll be home all day and all night, lecturing the furniture about abstinence.

The Breathtaking Audacity Of Scott Walker

Even after ten years of calling out Scott Walker on his bad policies, his misconduct in office, and his malfeasance, he still has the ability to leave me flabbergasted from time to time.

Please let me explain.

Just yesterday, I wrote about how Scott Walker blatantly abused the power of his office as Milwaukee County Executive in taking a taxpayer-funded Harley Davidson ride around the state, purportedly to promote tourism, but was nothing more than a campaign stunt:

If you take a closer look at Walker's email, he sent it on Friday, May 14, 2010. Yet on the very next day, Saturday, May 15, Walker left Milwaukee on his infamous Harley Davidson "Executive Ride." This ride, which was purportedly to promote tourism for Milwaukee County, was nothing more than a poorly disguised campaign event for Walker. He moved the ride up from it's usual time at the end of June because, get ready for this, it was too warm then to go for a motorcycle ride. In what I'm sure is a coincidence (meaning it was anything but a coincidence), Walker's bike ride led back to Milwaukee just in time for the Republican state convention, in which the party nominees were named. Shazam! How'd that happen?!

This campaign bike rid is also what led the DPW to file a complaint against Walker, first with the GAB and then with the Milwaukee County District Attorney, based in part on the fact that Russell, who went along on the ride as a county employee, was apparently doing what appears to be campaign work.

Walker didn't even wait a day before he violated his own directive.

Fun fact: For some reason, Walker didn't take a bike ride in 2011. I can't imagine why not.

But there's more. There's always more.

There's always more indeed.

I noticed today that Walker, despite having a John Doe investigation actively looking into his campaign and his county staff because of this, is doing the same bloody thing all over again!

On Wednesday, February 1, Walker went to Wausau as part of something he calls "Governor Walker's Turning Around Wisconsin Tour."

As the gentle reader will notice, this was sent from the Governor's Office, making it official state business.

But does anyone really believe that?

It's so obviously another gimmick, just like the bike ride was, in which Walker is using taxpayer dollars to run his "Please don't hold me accountable for my misdeeds by recalling me" campaign, that it's actually breathtaking in its audacity.

What's even more stunningly outrageous is that his "Turning Wisconsin Around Tour," according to the press release, is about his "agenda" for job creation.*

Well, to be fair, maybe it's not so outrageous after all.

As I have previously discussed, and as the following graph so eloquently shows, when it comes to job creation, Walker has definitely turned this state around, from a positive job growth period to six straight months of job losses, at twice the rate that Doyle had even in the height of the recession:

One does wonder how anyone can believe the tripe that Walker and WISGOP is trying to force down our throats.

However, regardless of Walker's hypocrisy and outright lies, this continued pattern of abusing the power of his office, whether county executive or governor, should not and can not be allowed to go on without Walker being called out on it.**

Whether it's via the recall or via being indicted in Walkergate, we cannot be rid of this weasel soon enough.

*Strangely, the WSAW-TV story on this decided to focus on education, which is another area he has failed miserably in. Also noteworthy, in the comment sections, it appears Walker's appearance at the school caused fights to break out. He's even divisive to our children.

**I would also like to know where the hell is the media who is supposed to be watchdogs for the people.  Has journalism dropped to such a low standard? I hope not, but still...

On The Next Edition Of "Do You Know Where Your Governor Is?"

Yes, folks, another edition of Wisconsin's favorite game show, "Do You Know Where Your Governor Is?" is coming up.  It is programmed for Wednesday, February 8.

And just to give you a hint, the secret location of your governor is Naples, FL.

But the next question is why would Scott Walker go to Naples, FL?

Would it be to visit the jobs he's been chasing out of Wisconsin for the last six months?

In a word, no.

Is it because he got screwed up on the dates and was going to surprise everyone by entering the Florida presidential primary?

Well, he might have dreams of being President of the United States, but I don't think a recalled and/or indicted former governor would have much of a chance.

Is he going to invite all the fleeing Wisconsin retirees back to the state to invest their hard earned money in his corporate welfare scheme?  He did promise to do that, you know.  Instead, he's tried to kill SeniorCare and Family Care and other services they would need., which I'm sure will draw them back in droves.

No, no, and no.

If you haven't guessed, he'll be abandoning his duties here in Wisconsin for yet another big-money, out-of-state fund raiser:

Yup, while more people are losing their jobs, falling behind on their bills and losing their homes because Scott Walker thinks that they made too much money and were leaving the poor multimillionaires behind, Walker will be yucking it up at a luncheon 1,500 miles away from Wisconsin.

And he wonders why people want to recall him.

MSJ Doesn't Report The News, They Fabricate It

I would expect that the Friends of Scott Walker will have to list this as an in-kind contribution unless they want complaints filed against them.

The Walker Budget Is Already Working! Part LXVIII

The Scott Walker budget is really in full steam when businesses, big and small, are closing almost daily, laying off even more workers. Now, it's another 100 workers in Madison feeling the hit:

Sub-Zero said 100 workers at its Madison plant will lose their jobs by the end of June.

The privately owned company, which makes upscale refrigerators and stoves, sent a letter to state and city officials Tuesday saying it will close operations at 4717 Hammersley Road on June 29.

[...]

Tuesday's notice spelled out the details: Seventy-five Sub-Zero employees and 25 temporary workers will lose their jobs in three rounds of cuts, starting April 2. In the letter the company blamed "changing business circumstances" for its decision.

Goodspeed said the workers affected earn $22 an hour, or about $30 an hour, including benefits.

"Some of these workers — they're having a tough time dealing with this. These are good-paying jobs. They know similar pay and similar benefits are not waiting for them on the outside," he said.

Goodspeed said up to now, the union has helped 20 other workers from the Madison plant find jobs in Fitchburg, where about 300 employees make Sub-Zero built-in freezers and refrigerators and 200 produce Wolf ranges and cooktops. He said he hopes some of the remaining employees can also be shifted to Fitchburg.

Though they are not new, the job cuts are still hard to swallow, Goodspeed said, especially with concessions employees took in order to keep their work here. Bitterly fought contract agreements, reached over the past year and a half, cost union members 20 percent of their pay and benefits and froze wages for five years but promised to keep their jobs until at least 2018.

Did you notice that the unions have done more to keep people working in this one case than Walker did in the last year? Walker's not only corrupt, he's incompetent. And he needs to go.

Question Of The Day

How does the time that Scott Walker has spent going to out-of-state fund raisers compare to the time the Fab 14 spent in Illinois to buy Wisconsinites time to realize what a bloody mess Walker and company were making of our state?

Walker's Web

Although I should point out that there should be direct line from Jim Villa to Scott Walker.


With gratitude to my dear Lisa Mux.