Dr. Carson's Waukesha Resume

By Jeff Simpson

 Dr. Ben Carson is the latest media darling of the right. A minority has bad things to say about the left, especially President Obama and you become an instant superstar.

How much of a superstar? Jim Wigderson actually wants him to vote! So much of a superstar that they even get invited to speak in Waukesha by the MacIver Institute. So much of a superstar that Wiggy took time out of his incredibly busy schedule to gush over him.

Probably to the disappointment for many of his new fans, there is no announcement about running for public office planned for Thursday night. "People are always going to continue to ask me if I am running for political office, and I going to continue to say that's not my intention but I'll leave that in the hands of God."

Carson will be speaking to a large and enthusiastic audience Thursday night. His messages of free market solutions to our country's problems and reducing the size of government will probably touch a chord with many in the audience. We'll see if the expected enthusiastic response speeds up God's plan for Carson.

 America loves Hero worship.  Especially when the hero is being led by God Himself.  

Who knew though that God would defend Ray Rice and ignore Godwin's Law.  

Let’s not all jump on the bandwagon of demonizing this guy. He obviously has some real problems.
  And his wife obviously knows that, because she subsequently married him. So they both need some help. And rather than jumping on a punitive bandwagon, let’s see if we can get some help for these people.

 -----------------------

In an interview with Newsmax host J.D. Hayworth today, Ben Carson said that if people want to know the truth about President Obama, they should simply “read ‘Mein Kampf’ and read the works of Vladimir Lenin.” “Mein Kampf,” of course, was written by Adolf Hitler and is filled with anti-Communist diatribes.

Carson, a likely Republican presidential candidate who is obsessed with the conspiracy-theory-laden book “The Naked Communist,” strongly hinted in the interview that he believes Obama is a communist.

In an interview with Newsmax host J.D. Hayworth today, Ben Carson said that if people want to know the truth about President Obama, they should simply “read ‘Mein Kampf’ and read the works of Vladimir Lenin.” “Mein Kampf,” of course, was written by Adolf Hitler and is filled with anti-Communist diatribes.
Carson, a likely Republican presidential candidate who is obsessed with the conspiracy-theory-laden book “The Naked Communist,” strongly hinted in the interview that he believes Obama is a communist.
- See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ben-carson-know-obama-read-mein-kampf#sthash.ejdo0vPr.dpuf

In an interview with Newsmax host J.D. Hayworth today, Ben Carson said that if people want to know the truth about President Obama, they should simply “read ‘Mein Kampf’ and read the works of Vladimir Lenin.” “Mein Kampf,” of course, was written by Adolf Hitler and is filled with anti-Communist diatribes.
Carson, a likely Republican presidential candidate who is obsessed with the conspiracy-theory-laden book “The Naked Communist,” strongly hinted in the interview that he believes Obama is a communist.
- See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ben-carson-know-obama-read-mein-kampf#sthash.ejdo0vPr.dpuf

In an interview with Newsmax host J.D. Hayworth today, Ben Carson said that if people want to know the truth about President Obama, they should simply “read ‘Mein Kampf’ and read the works of Vladimir Lenin.” “Mein Kampf,” of course, was written by Adolf Hitler and is filled with anti-Communist diatribes.
Carson, a likely Republican presidential candidate who is obsessed with the conspiracy-theory-laden book “The Naked Communist,” strongly hinted in the interview that he believes Obama is a communist.
- See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ben-carson-know-obama-read-mein-kampf#sthash.ejdo0vPr.dpuf

 Let's see, hatred of President Obama, likes Hitler references, defends people who beat women, definitely republican presidential contender.  All he needs to do now, is come out strong against gay marriage and Waukesha will give him the keys to the city!  

Jeff Smith For Assembly

Jeff Smith is running for Assembly in Wisconsin and you should help him out! 




Let's put sanity back in Madison because it is very much needed!

Jeff's opponent is Waryn Petryk:



The choice is clear!

Iowa Opens Pandora Box

By Jeff Simpson

Thanks to the courage of Governor Walker and JB Van Hollen, Wisconsin is using our unlimited taxpayer resources to fight the scourge of gay marriage that is taking hold in this country. 

While it is still illegal in WI, is the time to strike.   Our neighbors in Iowa have decided to stop fighting it and allow gay marriage!  That scandalous decision means that Iowa businesses are ripe for the picking.  

When you allow such abominable things like gay marriage to be legal then you end up with stories like this one! 

Vivian Boyack and Alice "Nonie" Dubes say it is never too late for people to write new chapters in their lives.
Boyack, 91, and Dubes, 90, began a new chapter in their 72-year relationship Saturday when they exchanged wedding vows at First Christian Church, Davenport.

What business wants to do business in a state that would have pictures like this plastered in their local newspaper?



Yes Scott Walker gets it.  Gay Marriage can not be allowed to happen.   Our LGBQ friends, family, neighbors do not deserve the same rights as the heterosexuals in Wisconsin do.   If they want to get married, they should choose to be straight!   

I can see the ad now......

In Iowa two women are allowed to get married, the sacred institution of  marriage is in trouble.   In Wisconsin we know, protect and honor that sacred institution.  Men will not be marrying men and women will not be marrying women.  (cut to Robin Vos) 

Hello I am Robin Vos, speaker of the Assembly in WI.  We realize how important traditional marriage is and know how important it is to the bottom line of your business.  Relocate to WI and we pledge to help your business by keeping marriage between a man and a woman and forcing transvaginal ultra sounds on those liberal harlets!   Relocate to WI and the money will be rolling in.  

So thanks to Scott Walker and JB Van Hollen for fighting the legalization of gay marriage, they are doing it because they are economic geniuses.  
 

Remember that come voting time!!

Walker Arms Another "Bomb"

In 2009, while Scott Walker was still Milwaukee County Executive, he created an artificial financial crisis.  In order to address the supposed crisis, Walker wanted to impose an indefinite work hour reduction for AFSCME-represented employees, cutting the workers' hours - and pay - until the alleged deficit was resolved.

However, this was when unions were still at full strength and workers still had rights.  AFSCME filed for arbitration and won it, mostly because Walker had overstepped his authority and because there really wasn't a financial crisis:

The arbitrator also found other flaws with Walker's actions. These include the fact that Walker had failed to show that the County's projected deficit was severe enough to warrant such drastic actions. In fact, it was in the testimony that Walker's chief number cruncher, Steve Kreklow, admitted that the deficit was only one third the number of what Walker has been reporting. And even the new lower number of $4.5 million is almost seven times the number that the award-winning County Auditor found it to be.

Another error that Walker made was that he left the furlough open-ended which was contradictory to a previous arbitration hearing.

In 2010, Walker went after the workers again. This time, he created a deficit in his budget by factoring in concessions from the unions, even though he refused to come to the bargaining table to even ask for them. When the unions didn't make those concessions - again because Walker refused to negotiate - he imposed up to 26 furlough days on AFSCME workers.

As with his first attack on his own employees, this one eventually was found to be illegal and the workers received their back pay a few years later.

Unfortunately, these stunts were only precursors for things to come.

After becoming governor, Walker immediately set about creating yet another "financial crisis" by giving away hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to his cronies and campaign donors. Before Walker was done handing over the last fistful of cash, he declared the state to be in a financial crisis and introduced the misnamed "budget repair bill" which became Act 10.

As the gentle reader is all too aware, Act 10 was a failure of epic proportion.  It took $3 billion out of the state economy, making it go stagnant.  It cost tens of thousands of people their jobs and caused even more people to take big cuts in their take home pay, worsening the economy even further.

With the economic devastation of Act 10, Walker also gave massive tax breaks and giveaways to the rich.  This led up to the predictable deficit of $1.8 billion - you read that right, billions with a "b" - that the state is currently facing.

Even before that deficit was announced, when we learned that the state was facing a revenue shortfall of  $115 million, there were already calls for another budget repair bill.

Now that the deficit is so large, it gives Walker and his Teapublican allies in the legislature more than enough excuse to arm another bomb for Walker to drop on the state.  Because of the size of the deficit, Walker doesn't even have to settle for just rolling public safety personnel - cops and firefighters - into Act 10.  He can go for the whole thing and push for the Right to Work legislation, which has already been written and is just waiting to be introduced.

It's no longer a question of whether Walker will drop another bomb on the state but a matter of when.

Ryan Murray...Is Causing Deep And Lasting Harm...

By Jeff Simpson

Scott Walker's pet project, WEDC, has been a miserable failure in terms of job creation and a taxpayers money pit.    While there is too much incompetence to list at this time, there is one thing that really stands out!

The Incompetence of Ryan Murray.   




   

Even though we at CogDis have been pointing out that Ryan Murray is beyond incompetent.  It was not Murray's bang up job responding to "citizens policy questions" as much as it was that Ryan's daddy - Mike Murray of RJS Construction.   

When you run a business as successful as RJS Construction, you can not have incompetent boobs like Murray working in the office.   So you call in favors and get him in charge of tens of millions of tax payer dollars.  He can see the world, make a good living and not affect your family's bottom line.

On the other hand, Ryan Murray, as a child of privilege who never had to work for anything in his life, yet was handed everything.   Murray, who couldn't cut it going away to college, has always needed daddy to bail him out.   Murray, has bounced from one right wing campaign to another until Scott Walker handed him power.  Now the power that the Governor has given him has went to his head and it is  not pretty.

Lee Swindall, WEDC's vice president of business and industry development,recently quit because he could not stand Murray.   He was eventually talked into staying, but before that he sent this letter! 

"As a leader of the organization and its mission, I can no longer align with the management methods employed in policy development or deployment. I believe Ryan Murray, lacking either the talent or experience to function as the Chief Operations Officer of the WEDC, is causing deep and lasting harm through the application of control-style management rather than consultative management.

"Murray confuses rigid control with stability and sound management. What he is producing instead is instability, opposition and resentment in WEDC. This state of growing unrest will corrode the ability of the agency to perform and reach goals, not secure it. Ryan Murray is too committed to his own consolidated power to either notice or care about the swelling discontent in WEDC."

The letter came after one clash after another in which Murray reprimanded Swindall for what he saw as chronic flouting of agency procedures and rules — at a time when Murray was tasked with running a tighter ship.

Murray, called out as incompetent by a peer, is now in charge of tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money.   No wonder Scott Walker can not create jobs.   


This is what you get when Scott Walker is in charge.  Walker cares more about rewarding donors than actually governing and his appointments and actions prove it.

We do not need four more years of incompetence and cronyism.  Let's make Ryan Murray try and get a real job,disband WEDC and vote Scott Walker out of office in November

Our tax dollars and our jobs depend on it!   

We Need A Mulligan

By Jeff Simpson

Seriously, can we just declared republican rule and giving Scott Walker the keys to our state as a miserably failed experiment and start over by kicking them all out of office in November?

Madison — The expected shortfall for the next two-year state budget now stands at nearly $1.8 billion, or about half of what it was when Gov. Scott Walker took office in January 2011.
The Republican governor resolved a more than $3 billion budget shortfall in the months after taking office, but the latest projections show a gap once again opening in the 2015-'17 budget because of tax cuts enacted by Walker and lawmakers and lagging growth in other state taxes.
The latest estimates by the Legislature's non-partisan budget office jumped by more than $1.1 billion over the previous estimate of a $642 million gap released in May. The projections from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau were released Monday for the budget beginning in July 2015 and ending in June 2017.
These projections aren't final — they could still get better or worse depending on the whims of the global economy. But any weakness in the coming budget will make it harder for state leaders to increase spending on priorities such as schools or cut taxes further for state residents.
"With all the bad economic news working families have dealt with, Gov. Walker's structural deficit is yet another reminder that Wisconsin is heading in the wrong direction," said state Sen. Jennifer Shilling (D-La Crosse), a member of the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee. "This budget crisis was completely avoidable and will only get worse if we don't act now to balance our budget and grow our economy from the bottom up."

I know Scott Walker has broken all of his promises, but did anyone believe him anyway?  

Let's put this era in WIsconsin politics behind us the way we put the Sal Bando Brewer GM years and Bart Starr/Forest Gregg Packers head coaching years behind us in this state.   

Hire professionals, move on and never speak of them again!  

Four Reasons Why Minnesota Is Beating Wisconsin

Despite Scott Walker's flailing attempts to spin it otherwise, the fact is that Minnesota is outperforming Wisconsin in job creation and almost every other economic indicator.  There is a multitude of reasons why this is so, but I want to point out what I believe to be four of the bigger reasons.

Health care

The average person in Minnesota pays about half of what a person in Wisconsin would pay for health insurance.  The reason for this is explained by State Senator Kathleen Vinehout:

First, it is important to note that Wisconsin does not significantly differ from Minnesota in per-person health costs. Wisconsin is slightly more expensive, but per-person costs in both states are a little under $6,000 a year.

Second, Minnesota made very different decisions than Wisconsin last year. Minnesota chose a state-based marketplace, chose to keep parents up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level on Medicaid and chose to expand coverage of Medicaid for all people up to 133 percent of FPL. This means a single person who makes up to about $15,000 a year can get on the Gopher state’s version of BadgerCare. The state also chose to vigorously use rate review authorities.

Wisconsin, on the other hand, decided to let folks buy insurance through the federal marketplace. The governor and lawmakers who voted for the state budget dropped BadgerCare coverage for any adult who made a little more than $11,000 a year. The state decided to not use its rate review authorities.

Senator Vinehout goes on to say that by not expanding the Medicaid, Walker is forcing those who are going through the marketplace for their insurance to pay 8 -10% more.

Needless to say, the more people are being force to pay for their health care insurance, the less they have to spend on anything else.  This, in turn, slows down the economy, costing us even more jobs.

Minimum Wage

Walker said that the issue of raising the minimum wage in Wisconsin is only "a distraction."

Meanwhile, Minnesota has raised their minimum wage to $8.00 per hour - even for food service jobs, which are still $2.30 per hour in Wisconsin - and will bump it up to $9.50 per hour by 2016.  Obviously, this puts more money into the pockets of the workers who are much more likely to spend that money, stimulating the state's economy.  The difference is so great that many people in the border towns are going across the state line to get those jobs, passing up similar jobs in Wisconsin to do so.

It should be noted that Mary Burke, Walker's gubernatorial opponent, is for raising the state's minimum wage to $10.10 per hour.  While that still falls short of a living wage, it would help tens of thousands of people avoid losing their homes while still keeping food on the table and buying necessities, like medication.

Not only would raising the minimum wage help stimulate Wisconsin's stagnant economy, it could also help deal with the revenue shortfall we are facing under Walker's maladministration.

Equality Pay

Another area that Minnesota leads Wisconsin is in the way they treat women.

Minnesota has passed the Women's Economic Security Act, which not only benefits women, but the state as a whole:

The law provides an expansive host of benefits, including requirements that employers provide basic accommodations for pregnant workers, and protections for mothers who need to express breast milk. It raises the minimum wage, and provides a number of protections intended to address the economic consequences of domestic violence, stalking, and sexual assault, including an expansion of unemployment insurance and allowing employees who are victims of violence to use paid sick time. It requires private businesses with 40 or more employees seeking state contracts above $500,000—that’s about 1,000 state contractors—to have an “equal pay certificate” verifying that the average compensation for employees in similar positions do not vary by gender. It contains provisions similar to those within the stalled federal Paycheck Fairness Act, such as not allowing employers to retaliate against employees for discussing their wages. It provides funding to promote increased employment of women in highly paid industries where they are dramatically underrepresented, including construction. (Currently, 6 percent of construction companies in the state are owned by a woman.)

Compare that to Walker, who actually weakened Wisconsin's pay equality laws and made things more unsafe for women who are the victim's of domestic and/or sexual violence.  Thanks to Walker's misguided policies, not only are Wisconsin women making less money, some are forced to decide between their paltry paycheck and their personal safety.

This is not good for women and not good for the state.

Unions

Obviously, we all know about Walker's claim to infamy, Act 10, and the devastating effect it had on the state's economy by taking $3 billion out of the economy and into the coffers of Walker's wealthy supporters.  This has led to the loss of tens of thousands of jobs across the state in both the public and private sectors.

Meanwhile, in Minnesota, unions are respected and allowed to be the voice for the workers, which has already led to two major successes.

One of the wins for workers is that allowed 27,000 in-home health workers join a union:

Thousands of in-home health care providers in Minnesota voted to create their own union, the state announced Tuesday after tallying the results.

With the union now authorized, the Service Employees International Union, which organized the election, can negotiate with the state for wages and benefits for the estimated 27,000 eligible workers. About 60 percent of the roughly 5,800 voters who cast ballots approved unionization, the Bureau of Mediation Services said.

Union supporters who care for sick, elderly and disabled patients in their own homes celebrated the creation of their new union as a sign that better pay is on the horizon.

"We are now not invisible. We are 26,000 strong," said Debra Howze, a home care worker in north Minneapolis. The state has to "deal with a force to be reckoned with," she said.

Unsurprisingly, the National Right to Work Legal Foundation has vowed to fight this and to reinstate the plantation economy that they desire so desperately, regardless of how many people it harms.

The other huge win for working people in Minnesota came when the anti-union Target agreed to a labor peace agreement that will benefit the workers of janitorial companies that contract with Target:

Following a string of strikes and protests held by low-wage workers in Minneapolis-St. Paul, the Minnesota-based retailer Target has agreed to insert language into its vendor contracts urging high labor standards at the firms that clean the company's stores in the area.

According to a draft of the agreement shared with HuffPost, Target will stipulate that the cleaning companies it works with cannot interfere with workers' organizing rights, must follow wage-and-hour laws and must establish worker safety committees.

Significantly, the draft agreement would also compel the subcontractors to bargain with a labor union seeking to represent the workers, so long as the union agreed not to carry out strikes, protests or other "economic interference with Target's operations."

That sort of measure, sometimes referred to as a labor peace agreement, could very well pave the way for subcontracted janitors in Target's Minneapolis-area stores to unionize.

As noted above, these actions will allow workers to get more money, which will go to stimulate the state's economy, which will lead to even more good paying jobs.  Not only will the pay for these workers increase, but they will also be able to negotiate for other benefits such as paid vacations and sick leave.  On top of that, they will have better working conditions, which will protect them as well as their employers.

While the list above is not comprehensive for all of the reasons why Minnesota is outperforming Wisconsin economically.  For example, it doesn't include such obvious other factors such as the fact that Minnesota embraced high speed rail and is benefiting from all the federal funding and jobs that come with it.  However, it does serve to show that on every choice that Walker has made regarding his budgets and policies, he has been absolutely on the wrong side of things.

Sadly, we the ones paying for Walker's mistakes and will continue to do so until we vote him out of office.

It's either that or we all move to Minnesota and I really, really don't want to be a Vikings fan.

NBA -2 / WI - 0!

By Jeff Simpson

For those who have not been paying attention to the NBA, one of the owners, Donald Sterling went off on a racist rant to his girlfriend.   The result of this rant caused much uproar within the NBA community and the sports world as a whole.

Embattled Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling has lost his bid to block the $2bn (£1.18bn) sale of the team to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

The deal has been negotiated by Mr Sterling's estranged wife Shelly Sterling.
Mrs Sterling said she had taken over the family trust that owns the team because doctors found Mr Sterling had signs of Alzheimer's disease and could not manage his affairs.
He sought to block the sale, saying his wife had deceived him about the medical exams and at one point calling her a "pig" in court.
The 80-year-old billionaire was banned by the National Basketball Association after he made offensive remarks about black people.
 The saga began in April when a recording surfaced of Mr Sterling scolding his young girlfriend for bringing black men to Clippers games.
The NBA moved quickly to ban him for life and fined him $2.5m (£1.4m).

Recently, the NBA had to deal with a similar situation as the owner of the Atlanta Hawks was busted sending a racist intra-office email to his fellow executives of the team.   

For the second time this year, the owner of a professional basketball team will sell his controlling interest of a franchise after his racially insensitive views were made public.

Bruce Levenson, who has led the ownership group of the Atlanta Hawks since 2004, informed N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver on Saturday that he intended to sell the team, effectively cutting short a league investigation into an email that Mr. Levenson sent two years ago to fellow Hawks executives detailing his thoughts on how the team could attract more white fans.

On Sunday, when the issue came to light, the Hawks released the text of the August 2012 email, in which Mr. Levenson speculated that the team’s black fans had “scared away the whites” and that there were “not enough affluent black fans to build a significant season ticket base.”

“I think Southern whites simply were not comfortable being in an arena or at a bar where they were in the minority,” Mr. Levenson said in his email, pointing out that he had earlier told the executive team that he wanted “some white cheerleaders” and “music familiar to a 40-year-old white guy,” and that he thought “the kiss cam is too black.”

 Mr. Levenson knew what he wrote was wrong and the NBA jumped in immediately to do damage control.

“If you’re angry about what I wrote, you should be,” he said. “I’m angry at myself, too. It was inflammatory nonsense. We all may have subtle biases and preconceptions when it comes to race, but my role as a leader is to challenge them, not to validate or accommodate those who might hold them.”

Mr. Silver, the commissioner, responded in a statement, “As Mr. Levenson acknowledged, the views he expressed are entirely unacceptable and are in stark contrast to the core principles of the National Basketball Association.”

 Yes it is the year 2014, yes racism is still there and yes people are still emailing racist emails and having racist conversations in private.  Most of us know it is not OK.   Most of us know there is no place for that in our society.

 The NBA gets it.    The State of Wisconsin and the republican party do not!

In the document dumps of Scott Walker's emails (#Walkerdocs), we have found many racist and disgusting emails. 




All sent intra-office emails(on Government taxpayer funded email systems) from Walker Chief of Staff Tom Nardelli to Kelly Rindfleisch and copied to an unknown recipient list(which all signs point to Scott Walker being included on).

 Scott Walker ‏@ScottWalker Sep 6

Paying my respects to the family of Tom Nardelli. He was a great public servant and a good friend.

Apparently sending enough racist jokes to the Walker troops makes one a great public service.    One thing different about Nardelli though, is that he was an equal opportunity smearer. 

Update, 12:30 p.m. CST: On pages 8,921 and 8,922 of WalkerDocs 2, we find Walker's county chief of staff Thomas Nardelli passing along a racist email smearing Muslims. It is titled, "Tolerance." Nardelli comments, "After the candidate forum, this will put a smile on your face for certain!"

I am perplexed that so many are against a mosque being built near Ground Zero. I think it should be the goal of every American to be tolerant. The mosque should be allowed, in an effort to promote tolerance.
That is why I also propose, that two gay nightclubs be opened next door to the mosque thereby promoting tolerance within the mosque. We could call the clubs "The Turban Cowboy" and "You Mecca Me So Hot".
Next door should be a butcher shop that specializes in pork and have an open barbeque with spare ribs as its daily special. Across the street a very daring lingerie store called "Victoria Keeps Nothing Secret" with sexy mannequins in the window modeling the goods.
Next door to the lingerie shop, there would be room for an Adult Toy Shop (Koranal Knowledge?), its name in flashing neon lights, and on the other side a liquor store, maybe call it "Morehammered"

- See more at: http://www.progressive.org/news/2014/02/187082/biggest-revelations-scott-walkers-really-bad-day#sthash.WsXKHDGl.dpuf

Update, 12:30 p.m. CST: On pages 8,921 and 8,922 ofWalkerDocs 2, we find Walker's county chief of staff Thomas Nardelli passing along a racist email smearing Muslims. It is titled, "Tolerance." Nardelli comments, "After the candidate forum, this will put a smile on your face for certain!"

    I am perplexed that so many are against a mosque being built near Ground Zero. I think it should be the goal of every American to be tolerant. The mosque should be allowed, in an effort to promote tolerance.

    That is why I also propose, that two gay nightclubs be opened next door to the mosque thereby promoting tolerance within the mosque. We could call the clubs "The Turban Cowboy" and "You Mecca Me So Hot".

    Next door should be a butcher shop that specializes in pork and have an open barbeque with spare ribs as its daily special. Across the street a very daring lingerie store called "Victoria Keeps Nothing Secret" with sexy mannequins in the window modeling the goods.

    Next door to the lingerie shop, there would be room for an Adult Toy Shop (Koranal Knowledge?), its name in flashing neon lights, and on the other side a liquor store, maybe call it "Morehammered

Update, 12:30 p.m. CST: On pages 8,921 and 8,922 of WalkerDocs 2, we find Walker's county chief of staff Thomas Nardelli passing along a racist email smearing Muslims. It is titled, "Tolerance." Nardelli comments, "After the candidate forum, this will put a smile on your face for certain!"

I am perplexed that so many are against a mosque being built near Ground Zero. I think it should be the goal of every American to be tolerant. The mosque should be allowed, in an effort to promote tolerance.
That is why I also propose, that two gay nightclubs be opened next door to the mosque thereby promoting tolerance within the mosque. We could call the clubs "The Turban Cowboy" and "You Mecca Me So Hot".
Next door should be a butcher shop that specializes in pork and have an open barbeque with spare ribs as its daily special. Across the street a very daring lingerie store called "Victoria Keeps Nothing Secret" with sexy mannequins in the window modeling the goods.
Next door to the lingerie shop, there would be room for an Adult Toy Shop (Koranal Knowledge?), its name in flashing neon lights, and on the other side a liquor store, maybe call it "Morehammered"

- See more at: http://www.progressive.org/news/2014/02/187082/biggest-revelations-scott-walkers-really-bad-day#sthash.WsXKHDGl.dpu

Why would we expect more out of an NBA franchise owner than we do our very own Governor?  Why would the national and local press not demand answers about the racist emails floating around Walkers upper staff?  Who exactly was on the anonymous recipient list?  Did anyone in the Walker inner circle ask to be excluded from the racist emails?  Where are the people in the republican party appalled by this behavior?  Is this the behavior we want our children to model?  have his children followed in his footsteps?  Has anyone ever apologized for this filth?  Are there still racist emails flowing through the inner circle?  What else are they hiding from us?

So many questions met with complete silence by Scott Walker and the people of Wisconsin deserve so much more! 

Brian Sikma Defends Plantation Economics

On Wednesday, I took advantage of hearing Boyd McCamish, the Executive Director of AFSCME District Council 48, give a presentation about the history of the so-called "Right to Work" laws.

McCamish explained that "Right to Work" laws originated in the Deep South as a reaction of the agricultural elite to unionists who came to help workers - who were primarily African Americans - organize and push for better work conditions and better pay.  The agricultural elite wanted to preserve their plantation economy and have been fighting to suppress workers' voices and minimize (if not eliminate) workers' rights ever since.

The anti-worker fight eventually led to the Taft-Hartley Act, which opened the door for Right to Work, which the Southern states jumped at and passed as quickly as they could.  Now the Big Business factions are looking to spread their maleficence around the country, especially in the Midwest.

Their efforts are evident throughout the Midwest in both subtle and not so subtle cases, ranging from Scott Walker's Act 10 and Michigan's ramming through Right to Work legislation in a lame duck session to the race baiting language used by squawk radio and propaganda groups.

Two examples of the latter came up this week.

Brian Sikma

Both are pieces of dreck written by Brian Sikma, the racist hack employed by Media Trackers, the propaganda front group sponsored by the Bradley Foundation, the Koch Brothers and other dark money sources.

In the first example, Sikma attacks Sheila Cochran, the Secretary/Treasurer of the Milwaukee Area Labor Council.  His complaint is that Cochran, an African American woman, makes more than the median average for Wisconsin households:

The annual Milwaukee Laborfest Labor Day event is organized by the Milwaukee Area Labor Council, an AFL-CIO affiliated non-profit that assists labor unions with educational and organizing activities. While the event is designed to celebrate union workers, the leader of the group hosting the event, Sheila Cochran, makes more than the median income for Wisconsin working families.

According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the median income for Wisconsin households between 2008 and 2012 was $52,627, just slightly below the national median household income.

Records filed with the IRS by the Milwaukee Area Labor Council reveal that Cochran’s 2012 salary from the group was $76,799. Despite being higher than the median household income of the state, that figure is actually lower than what her salary has been previously. In 2009 Cochran made $80,804 and in 2011 she made $78,182.

Obviously, Sikma is offended that a black woman is making a living wage. Oddly, Sikma doesn't mention that Dianne Hendricks, a white woman who favors squashing workers' rights, was worth nearly $3 billion in 2012, yet didn't pay one cent in taxes.

In his next example, he lashes out at a union leader that put his personal freedom at risk by joining scores of people demonstrating in support of a living wage and the right to unionize.  The union leader's crime apparently was trying to raise up everyone while making more than a minimum wage himself:

Bob Peterson is the president of the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association – MTEA – the union for teachers in Milwaukee Public Schools, the state’s largest school district. On Thursday, Peterson joined Wisconsin Jobs Now, 15 Now and representatives from several labor unions including the SEIU and AFSCME to protest in favor of raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

According to a database assembled by media outlets, Peterson’s total compensation from Milwaukee Public Schools during the 2012-2013 school year – the most recent year for which data is available – was $121,616. His formal job title is “Short Term Substitute Teacher” and his job category is “Short-Term Substitute/Extra Curricular Activities.”

In the middle of the school day, Peterson was spotted walking in circles on a sidewalk outside of a McDonalds shortly after several protesters, including U.S. Congresswoman Gwen Moore (D) were arrested for disorderly conduct. Asked if he works a minimum wage job, Peterson confirmed that his job pays him more than the minimum wage.

Again, Sikma won't come out and say what he wants to say, but his outrage apparently stems from the fact that many of the fast food workers would benefit from a living wage are African Americans. Sikma must not be able to understand how Peterson, a white man making more than minimum wage, could possibly want to rectify the pay disparity that minorities have to face every day.

Now, these are just two obvious examples of the mentality that the special interests and their minions have.  But if the gentle reader pays attention, I assure you that you will be shocked at just how pervasive this racism is, either on squawk radio and other forms of corporate media to statements made by the likes of Scott Walker and Chris Abele.

The good news is that we can and we will overcome their maleficence through educating, organizing and - most important of them all - voting.

Caption This: Walker Promotes "Unintimidated" To Captive Audience

Apparently, Scott Walker's book is selling so poorly that he is forced to push it to captive audiences:

It has to be that because it would be just too outrageous to think that he would cynically use a bunch of African American children for a photo op.