The Walker Budget Keeps On Working! Part XCCV

I've said it time and time again, but for some people, it's apparently not enough times.

When Scott Walker enacted his budgets and his policies, he took money away from the people, and out of circulation, to give to his wealth campaign contributors, most of whom come from other states. Because their money was taken away, people are forced to cut back on their spending, and among the first things to be cut are things like going to movies, going out to eat, etc. And when people stop spending on these niceties, the businesses like theaters and restaurants suffer.

Case in point (emphasis mine):

Fila Bene Ristorante Italiano in Mequon has closed, according to the restaurant’s outgoing voicemail message.

“Today is a sad yet hopeful day,” partner Angelo Vasta said in the message.
He said the restaurant closed because it didn’t have enough customers to support the cost of operations. But he’s hopeful about his next step.

And the beat(ings) go on...

It's Good Work If You Can Get It

Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch -  $76,261/yr + per diems, with Cadillac taxpayer funded health care
Assemblyman Joel Kleefisch - $ 49,943/yr + per diems with Cadillac taxpayer funded health care

Total amount of money that the Kleefisch family takes from the taxpayers = $126,204 + per diems and taxpayer funded Cadillac health care.   

. 

The Wisconsin State legislature adjourned on March 16th 2012, and have no plans on to meet until well after the November 2012 elections. 

For those of you scoring at home, that is a minimum of 8 months off, along with weekends and all holidays, while collecting full salary and benefits from the Wisconsin taxpayer.  As you can see the Kleefisch family is using their time well to serve their constituents.  Except of course when they had a chance to actually help their constituents and harmed them instead.  

Voters get to decide if their money is being well spent or if they want to elect someone serious about the job in Scott Michalak.   Maybe its time we stopped funding hunting trips and tried to get the people of Wisconsin back to work!   

The Republicans ARE the Problem!

A top Reagan Appointed Conservative Judge Richard Posner is saying what we all are thinking:

Judge Richard Posner, a conservative on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, has long been one of the nation's most respected and admired legal thinkers on the right. But in an interview with NPR, he expressed exasperation at the modern Republican Party, and confessed that he has become "less conservative" as a result.

Posner expressed admiration for President Ronald Reagan and the economist Milton Friedman, two pillars of conservatism. But over the past 10 years, Posner said, "there's been a real deterioration in conservative thinking. And that has to lead people to re-examine and modify their thinking."

"I've become less conservative since the Republican Party started becoming goofy," he said.

 Is Posner being hyperbolic?  Let's take a look.   Thomas Mann(Brookings Institute) and Norm Ornstein(American Enterprise Institute) recently co-authored a book “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism,”. Where their research led them to the conclusion that the problem with American Politics today is - Republicans! 

We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.

The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.

“Both sides do it” or “There is plenty of blame to go around” are the traditional refuges for an American news media intent on proving its lack of bias, while political scientists prefer generality and neutrality when discussing partisan polarization. Many self-styled bipartisan groups, in their search for common ground, propose solutions that move both sides to the center, a strategy that is simply untenable when one side is so far out of reach.

It is clear that the center of gravity in the Republican Party has shifted sharply to the right. Its once-legendary moderate and center-right legislators in the House and the Senate — think Bob Michel, Mickey Edwards, John Danforth, Chuck Hagel — are virtually extinct.

It is not just a a couple of liberals who think this, there is a strong contingent of old school republicans who are disgusted at the happenings of this once proud party.

1.  Former Nebraska republican Senator Chuck Hagel:

he’s “disgusted” by the “ irresponsible actions” of Republicans during the debt-ceiling debate. “I think the Republican Party is captive to political movements that are very ideological, that are very narrow. I've never seen so much intolerance as I see today in American politics,” he said.

2.  Mike Lofgren, a veteran Republican congressional staffer, quit after 30 years a republican staffer.

 “The Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe,”

3.    John B. Judis is a senior editor of The New Republic:

"Over the last four decades, the Republican Party has transformed from a loyal opposition into an insurrectionary party that flouts the law when it is in the majority and threatens disorder when it is the minority. It is the party of Watergate and Iran-Contra, but also of the government shutdown in 1995 and the impeachment trial of 1999. If there is an earlier American precedent for today's Republican Party, it is the antebellum Southern Democrats of John Calhoun who threatened to nullify, or disregard, federal legislation they objected to and who later led the fight to secede from the union over slavery."

4.   Jeb Bush:

The former Florida governor, until now a revered figure in the party, had the temerity to state in public what many others think in private: that the Republican Party has become so intransigent that even Ronald Reagan couldn’t fit under its tent.

“Reagan would have, based on his record of finding accommodation, finding some degree of common ground, as would my dad — they would have a hard time if you define the Republican Party … as having an orthodoxy that doesn’t allow for disagreement, doesn’t allow for finding some common ground,” Bush said Monday in a meeting at Bloomberg headquarters in New York, according to the online publication Buzzfeed.

“Back to my dad’s time and Ronald Reagan’s time — they got a lot of stuff done with a lot of bipartisan support,” Bush added. Reagan today “would be criticized for doing the things that he did.”

Luckily for the sake of our country, there is stil some sanity in the republican party.  However do not expect to hear the findings of these studies or the thoughts of the sane members in the republican party to be heard on the Sunday morning political shows, they are not allowed! 

Last month, Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein published an Op ed and a book making the extremely controversial argument that both parties aren’t equally to blame for what ails Washington. They argued that the GOP — by allowing extremists to roam free and by wielding the filibuster to achieve government dysfunction as a political end in itself — were demonstrably more culpable for creating what is approaching a crisis of governance.

It turns out neither man has been invited on to the Sunday shows even once to discuss this thesis. As Bob Somerby and Kevin Drum note, these are among the most quoted people in Washington — yet suddenly this latest topic is too hot for the talkers, or not deemed relevant at all.

I ran this thesis by Ornstein himself, and he confirmed that the book’s publicity people had tried to get the authors booked on the Sunday shows, with no success.

“Not a single one of the Sunday shows has indicated an interest, and I do find it curious,” Ornstein told me, adding that the Op ed had well over 200,000 Facebook recommends and has been viral for weeks. “This is a level of attention for a book that we haven’t received before. You would think it would attract some attention from the Sunday shows.’

Finally, before anyone accuses us of not having solutions, here are the conclusions of Mann/Ornstein research:

We understand the values of mainstream journalists, including the effort to report both sides of a story. But a balanced treatment of an unbalanced phenomenon distorts reality. If the political dynamics of Washington are unlikely to change anytime soon, at least we should change the way that reality is portrayed to the public.

Our advice to the press: Don’t seek professional safety through the even-handed, unfiltered presentation of opposing views. Which politician is telling the truth? Who is taking hostages, at what risks and to what ends?
Also, stop lending legitimacy to Senate filibusters by treating a 60-vote hurdle as routine. The framers certainly didn’t intend it to be. Report individual senators’ abusive use of holds and identify every time the minority party uses a filibuster to kill a bill or nomination with majority support.

Look ahead to the likely consequences of voters’ choices in the November elections. How would the candidates govern? What could they accomplish? What differences can people expect from a unified Republican or Democratic government, or one divided between the parties?

In the end, while the press can make certain political choices understandable, it is up to voters to decide. If they can punish ideological extremism at the polls and look skeptically upon candidates who profess to reject all dialogue and bargaining with opponents, then an insurgent outlier party will have some impetus to return to the center. Otherwise, our politics will get worse before it gets better.

As I explained to Owen, the facts are on our side 

Now Go Thank A Teacher!

I could write a huge, long essay about why teachers should be receiving a helluva lot more respect than they are in Fitzwalkerstan.  But I won't.  You're welcome.

Instead, I'll just post this:

Click on image to embiggen

Source

Scott Walker Dumbs Down Wisconsin

To understand this story you have to understand two things that are relevant to it.  Number one, we  all know that Scott Walker dropped/was kicked out of Marquette and basically went right into politics. Number two, we also know that Scott Walker cut $1.6 Billion from public education in Wisconsin.  

Scott Walker who has a history of devaluing education, is at it again.   Scott Walker recently announced a new online degree initiative.  

A new self-paced, competency-based program for finishing a college degree online, and ostensibly making college more affordable and accessible, was announced Tuesday by Gov. Scott Walker and two top University of Wisconsin System officials.

The new UW Flexible Degree is touted as a transformation of higher education in Wisconsin, and an economic engine to drive up the state's per capita income by producing more college graduates trained for higher-paying jobs.

The new path to a degree will allow adults to start classes anytime, work at their own pace and earn credit for what they already have learned in school or on the job once they prove college-level competencies, UW officials said.

Sitting in class, learning from highly trained and educated professors, and being able to work and learn from your classmates is yesterdays education model.  Today's(thanks to Scott Walker) is one where you can sit at your computer,  google as you go, and skipping classes by taking minimum competency standardized tests.   (FYI:  Most companies who reimburse for college credit, will not honor online college classes).  

Now as capper likes to tell us, there is always more.   Scott Walker justifies it because of his laziness, incompetence and ignorance, letting everyone know that he was incapable of finishing his degree while thousands of hard working Wisconsites have already done the same.  

The governor said he could relate to adults seeking to finish a college degree. He left Marquette University his senior year to take a job with the American Red Cross and hasn't finished his degree.

"I kept thinking I'd go back, got married, had one kid, had another kid, next thing you know . . . you're worrying more about paying for your kids' college education than you are for your own," Walker said.

 Finally, how do we know that this is headed for a complete failure?  Steve nASS/Mike Mikalsen endorse it.

 

Rep. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater), chairman of the Assembly Colleges and Universities Committee, supports the new online model, according to Mike Mikalsen, an aide to nASS..

"It's something, frankly, the rest of public universities and the private universities have been doing already," Mikalsen said.

O yes one more thing that is typical to the Scott Walker style of government, Let's quickly pass something then figure it out later.

Mikalsen said the lawmaker was still waiting to see more details about the plan, such as how hard it will be to pass the online competency tests.

"We're all interested to see how that's going to work," he said.

The Real Reason Behind The Opposition To The Affordable Care Act

The real reason behind the fight against the Affordable Care Act is not whether it's a tax or not. The real reason has nothing to do with the Commerce Law. It also has nothing to do with the imaginary death panels or other fabrications they have come up with.

The real reason the teahadists and corporate puppets are against ACA is pure, unadulterated, old-fashioned greed:

Profits for the 10 largest U.S. insurance companies jumped 250% between 2000 and 2009 while millions of Americans have lost coverage, according to a report released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The report found that the five biggest insurance companies -- WellPoint (WLP), Cigna (CI), UnitedHealth Group (UNH), Aetna (AET) and Humana (HUM) -- saw their profits increase 56% in 2009, a year in which 2.7 million people lost their private coverage.What's more, the report found that the companies combined earned a total of $12.2 billion last year. And lest we forget, on the executive compensation, CEOs of the top five received $24 million on average in 2008, the report said.

Given the timing of the release of the report, was the document an effort by the Obama Administration to increase pressure on the insurance industry as it looks to gain the public's support for health-care reform? It's clear that health insurance companies don't seem to have a lot of friends these days.

That's not just revenue, that is profit. That is what they have gained after taxes (not that they pay any), after paying their workers, and other the other costs.

And that was from two years ago. Their profit margins are probably very much higher now.

And these are the "corporate people" who are buying our lawmakers to increase their power and their profits even more.

H/T The Motley Cow

Ode To Flashmob

There are flashmobs. And then there are winning flashmobs.

This is one of the best that I've seen in a long time:



I just love the looks of the people as they lighten up with joy over the music.

The Walker Budget Keeps On Working! Part XCCIV

Remember when Governor Jim Doyle invested in the University of Wisconsin so that it could be a world leader in the biotech field? Remember when Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk opened the door for biotech industries to take root and flourish, creating hundreds, if not thousands, of good paying jobs and putting Wisconsin on the map?

Man, I tell you, those were the days. The key word being "were."

In Fitzwalkerstan, Walker can't find two pennies to rub together for education, but can find over 200 million dollars to give to big businesses and big campaign donors. The results are predictable and they are not good for education or for business or for jobs:

Hologic Inc. will likely close its Madison facility 18 months or more after completing its pending acquisition of Gen-Probe Inc., according to a memo sent to employees.

Hologic, of Marlborough, Mass., gained a presence in Madison when it acquired Third Wave Technologies Inc., a maker of molecular diagnostic tests, in 2008. Hologic announced its $3.7 billion bid for Gen-Probe in April and has said it expects to complete the transaction in the third quarter.

Hologic has 150 employees in Madison, according to the 2012 Greater Madison area directory of high-tech companies published by Madison Gas & Electric Co.

Expense reductions will be completed during the next two months and would be implemented over an 18- to 24-month period after the acquisition closed, Rob Cascella, Hologic's chief executive, said in the memo, dated June 13.

All of the employees will be offered severance, the memo said.

"Through all of these extremely difficult times, I commit Hologic will be honorable and respectful," the memo said.

Hologic declined to comment about the memo or its plans for its Madison facility.

The article goes on to say that they hope some of the remaining companies pick up some of the workers. That will leave only 140 highly trained people to go on unemployment. Yay.

Paul Ryan - Man of the People*

Source

The Walker Budget Is Already Working! Part CXXIII

Scott Walker said that the state was "open for business."

Apparently the whole line is that Wisconsin is "open for businesses to leave and take their jobs with them":

IPacesetters LLC has told government officials it may close its call center in Eau Claire, a move that would throw 154 people out of work.

The New Jersey firm - which also has operations in Whitewater, Madison and Monroe - said the closing, if it occurs, would come no earlier than Aug. 30. The Eau Claire call center has union representation, but iPacesetters' notice to officials didn't name the union, and a company executive couldn't be reached for comment late Thursday.

Just when you think it can't get any worse, Walker keeps finding a way to make it just that.

Wisconsin, you chose poorly. Twice.

Correcting The Wrongs Of The Right

Since Owen Robinson has seen fit not to let me comment on his blog anymore, I am forced to correct his factual errors here.

My friend, Jenni Dye (the famed @legaleagle on teh twitter) wrote a thought-provoking opinion piece for the Isthmus regarding what she feels needs to be done to pull the Democratic Party and the progressives out of the quagmire of Fitzwalkerstan and lead the state back to where jobs are created and people are respected.

Robinson found the article interesting, but offered a couple of his own skewed observations.

The first one:

Where the author gets it a bit wrong is in from whence those new folks should hail. The Democratic Party of Wisconsin is currently being led by folks from the radical activist wing of the party. They are the ones who have driven the party into the wilderness. The party needs new blood, but putting up Blue Fisters hasn’t worked and it won’t work in the future. You can’t win the majority when you spend your time telling folks with whom you disagree how stupid/bigoted/sexist/oppressive/etc. they are. You have to actually communicate with them at some point.

The funny thing is that Ms. Dye was just elected this past spring as a Dane County Supervisor, even though she was on of the most recognized "blue fister" who he says can't ever be elected.

So much for his theories.

But the real kicker, which I will post with no further comment, except for emphasizing the pertinent parts, so that the gentle reader can get their licks in, is this "observation":

That’s where Republicans in Wisconsin have been successful in recent years. They have effective, principled people who communicate a positive vision of Wisconsin based on their values. They don’t denegrate those who oppose them and they don’t bash their opponents as bad people - just people with bad ideas. Of course there are exceptions, but the Republican Party has been quite disciplined as of late.

Oh, I guess I spoke too soon. I just have to point out that his first commenter, Kevin Binversie, who has recently called me a "liar" and a " loony, bat-shit crazy, AFSCME hack" rather shows just how wrong Robinson got it.

Some days, it is really beyond me how anyone can take these stooges seriously.

Pension Raiders Are Preparing To Attack

Earlier this week, the long awaited report on the state pension system finally came out. Lo and behold, the pension system was found to be strong and it was advised that no changes be made.

Scott Walker made a huge announcement that he currently had no plans to make any changes to the system. This was dutifully echoed by the Koch employees with a "See? Nothing to see here!" approach.

I warned the gentle reader not to their guard down:

I need to point out that there is no way in Fitzwalkerstan that Walker would not have let this release be issued, much less stand pat, unless he approved of it first.

It clearly indicates that the Walker administration will not be satisfied to leave it alone for long.

Indeed, history shows that Walker has an infinity to mucking up pension systems and that he has telegraphed his intention to do the same with the state's system.

Perhaps feeling the heat from the knowledge that Walker's day of reckoning with John Doe approaches nigh, the corporate interests which support Walker have no interest in waiting around to get their hands on the fully-funded pension system.

Indeed, the Koch-sponsored and directed propagandist group Wisconsin Reporter is laying the groundwork which will serve as the base for their attack on the pension system. Just days after the Pew report declared the pension system strong, they come out with this:

State officials might want to take a second look at the highly touted Wisconsin Retirement System.

The costs and transparency of state and local pensions may soon be on the rise in Wisconsin and across the nation, driven up by proposed changes from Moody’s Investors Service, the global credit rating agency.

The changes could mean that Wisconsin Retirement System is underfunded by nearly $30 billion – and that could ultimately drag on government bond ratings.

Among other adjustments, Moody’s proposes to standardize the public pension discount rate (or rate of return) at that of a high-grade, long-term corporate bond – currently yielding 5.5 percent. The changes will bring public pension reporting in line with the private sector, which uses the same corporate bond rate for valuing its liabilities.

States currently value their pension obligations based on how much they assume assets will return over the long haul. Wisconsin now uses a 7.2 percent discount rate.

The difference between 7.2 percent and Moody’s proposed standardized rate could mean a gap of billions of dollars in investment expectations.

Now, of course, the propagandists are expecting the people to take this as gospel truth, even though Moody's doesn't have the best track record, giving "the highest 'aaa' ratings to "toxic" instruments such as collatoralized debt obligations (CDOs) that later turned out to be very low quality debt instruments. The high rating enticed institutions to purchase these instruments, leading to defaults that spread throughout the financial system."

To bolster this hyperbolic claim, we can soon expect that the Franklin Institute (which oversees Wisconsin Reporter), the MacIver Institute, WPRI, squawk radio and the other propagandists to start parroting this doom and gloom forecast. When they repeat the lie enough, it will give enough faux credence to the lie that the corporate media will pick it up and run with it.

And thus the stage will be set for Walker and his Republican cronies to feign that there is a problem and do their full on assault on the pension. You can count on them using this excuse to try to convert the pension to a 401K and to raise the costs so high that public sector workers will be forced into the lower quality plan designed to channel the money to Wall Street.

Walker would have probably already called for a special session "to focus like a laser on job creation" in order to ramrod through the pension raid if they were foiled by the people in Racine who were able to overcome all the hanky-panky the Republicans had pulled in the recall election, knocking out the disgraced and disgraceful Van "Double Dipper" Wanggaard.

I still wouldn't put it past the Republicans to wait until there is a lull and call an emergency session during the summer lull in the hopes to catch enough Democrats unprepared and thus unable to exert their majority power in the Senate.

I've said it over and over, with Walker and his motley gang of thugs, there's more. There's always more.

It's up to us to be ready for it and squash it before it starts.

What is Robin Vos Missing? Ethics!

We at Cogdis have it on good authority, that Robin Vos  met with the Wizard of Oz and asked for a moral compas and ethics.  The Wizard when he finished laughing hysterically said that no miracle worker alive could accomplish that.  So Robin Vos found a home in the republican party of Wisconsin. 

Ladies and gentlemen, Your next Speaker of the Assembly - Robin Vos:

Rep. Robin Vos is fast developing a reputation as the most scandal-plagued member of the Legislature.

Last year Vos, R-Burlington, used his position as co-chairman of the Joint Finance Committee to halt deliberations on serious state budget issues in order to advance legislation promoted by out-of-state interests — specifically, the American Legislative Exchange Council, with which Vos has long been associated. That legislation, a voter ID law opposed by the League of Women Voters and other civic groups because it was seen as a crude voter-intimidation gimmick, was eventually ruled unconstitutional.

Last spring, it was revealed that Vos was engaged in a scheme to game the redistricting process by asking legislators to deceive their fellow legislators and the public.

Now Vos has gotten entangled in an ethics scandal that has forced him to withdraw from a lawsuit regarding the voter ID legislation.

Though ethics laws are clear on the fact that it is illegal for legislators to accept gifts of legal services — which can be worth tens of thousands of dollars — Vos engaged private lawyers to represent him in the efforts to defend his constitutionally dubious legislation. But instead of paying for the lawyers himself, Vos had others pay. And he refused to reveal who was paying.

Please explain to me again why anyone would vote for him?   One last thing the thrice divorced Robin Vos is also an unethical slumlord!  

The Walker Budget Keeps On Working! Part CXXII

Scott "Job Creator" Walker keeps up his usual level of performance on creating an environment conducive to creating jobs. And by creating jobs, he means losing them:

A food company is laying off 50 workers at a plant in the town of Seymour.

Provimi Foods notified the workers Monday. Company president Brian Friesen tells the station the layoffs come as the company shuts down its slaughter and meat dressing operations at the plant.

Friesen says the increasing costs of livestock production have affected the availability of livestock for processing. He says the plant will continue other production operations and still employee about 35 people.

I can't help but wondering how many of these people that are losing their jobs had voted for him. And I wonder if they're able to see how they cut their own throats if they had.

The People Have Spoken

Time to move on and accept the election results and if you do not like them wait until the next election! **

**  Does not apply when Democrats win, or if Democrats enact legislation, after being democratically elected.   

I think maybe instead of protesting and recalling the republicans we should have just said we have no interest in following anything the republicans enacted until the next election.  O wait, Justice Bradley tried to delay a Walker policy by a few days to make sure she got her decision right and Justice David Prosser tried to choke her into submission.  

Also in Racine, it appears that there is a true republican thug Lou D'Abbraccio who is a bully who likes to try and stomp his feet, mess with elections and bully people into submission.  To the republicans of Racine, nice way to represent your party!  For anyone interested in learning more about this republican lunatic check here and here!