Maichle, who describes himself as "I am work full-fledged in politics and I also enjoy other things too," needs to work on his videography besides his grammar.
For example, if you are trying to convince people that your candidate is so gosh darn popular that people can't get enough of him, you may not want to include pictures of him speaking to an empty room, like this one, taken from said video:
And while it is perfectly understandable why someone would want to portray their favorite candidate in the most favorite light possible, it is never a good idea to go overboard on it. Just as the right had a valid argument that the videos of school kids singing Obama hymns was a bit creepy, so is this:
The Milwaukee Public Museum is threatening to do away with its free day for Milwaukee County citizens. The commentators on the story in the paper are calling for a countywide pass, just like the one that Milwaukee County First had proposed last year.
Thanks to an alert reader, we find that Scott Walker is getting national attention, although not the kind he'd probably hope for:
--Republican Scott Walker is up with his first ad in Wisconsin's gubernatorial contest. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel notes he doesn't actually say he's running for anything.
I can't wait until the brown bag fiasco goes national.
Speaking of which, I have learned that not only is Walker eligible for the pension that is twice as much as what the average active county worker is making, Walker is also eligible for the free life-long health care coverage.
But I suppose that is not so bad, paying him all the money and giving him health care for doing nothing. We pay him a lot more now and he has been worse than nothing while in office.
UPDATE: Said alert reader has given me permission to identify him. His name is Landon Murphy. Keep them tips comin', Landon!
Peter Graves passed away this afternoon after experiencing a heart attack:
Peter Graves, the cool spymaster of television’s “Mission Impossible” and the dignified host of the “Biography” series, who successfully spoofed his own gravitas in the “Airplane” movie farces, died Sunday. He was 83.
He died of a heart attack at his home in Pacific Palisades, Calif., said Fred Barman, his business manager.
It was a testament to Mr. Graves’s earnest, unhammy ability to make fun of himself that after decades of playing square he-men and straitlaced authority figures, he was perhaps best known to younger audiences for a deadpan line in “Airplane!” (“Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?”) and one from a memorable Geico car insurance commercial (“I was one lucky woman”).
Born Peter Aurness in Minneapolis, the blond, 6-foot-2 Mr. Graves served in the Army Air Force in 1944-45, studied drama at the University of Minnesota under the G.I. Bill and played the clarinet in local bands before following his older brother, James Arness, to Hollywood.
I remember watching him in "Fury" every morning as I ate my breakfast as a grade schooler. His talent will be missed.
This past weekend, a group of conservatives got together in the Dells for the third annual Defending the Mass Riches of Koch Industries. If you believe theMilwaukee Journal Sentinel or any of the conservative bloggers who attended and/or wrote about it, it was a regular Kumbaya session of freedom fighters who are sick of the government doing silly things like helping people and preventing the rich get even richer at the expense of the poor and middle class.
The truth of the matter is that things were not all hunky-dory. It appears that there was a wee bit of an altercation that required police intervention*.
Working on a tip, I called Dan Mielke, a rather outspoken and most definitely conservative man, is running for the Republican nomination for the 7th District U.S. Representative. Mr. Mielke told me that he is tired of the machinations of the Republican Party trying to foist their favorites on the voters, as well as usurping control of the TEA Parties. That is why he is running against GOP pretty boy Sean Duffy, former star of reality TV.
Mr. Mielke told me that he is running against Duffy, because he doesn't feel that Duffy is a real conservative. He feels that Duffy is a hypocrite who claims to have Christian and conservative values, but doesn't display them or only does when it is convenient.
To make his point, Mr. Mielke had a table at the weekend's festivities. On display, he had a computer that was playing a video called "The Wedding Video," which apparently is a hybrid of home video and reality TV about a wedding between two homosexual men. Sean Duffy, and his wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy, both appear in the video. Mr. Mielke stated that this shows that Duffy isn't consistent between his actions and his words.
Well, it appears that Mrs. Duffy didn't like it being shown and tried to unplug the computer and otherwise interfere with the showing of this video. Things escalated to the point that the organizers of the event came to Mielke to discuss the issue. According to Mielke, they expressed concern if the Duffy children were to see this video and the effect it might have on them. Mielke, trying to be cooperative, agreed to cover the screen with a sheet of paper over the screen. On the paper, he wrote "View at your own risk."
Apparently, this did not meet with Campos-Duffy's satisfaction and she continued her harassment of Mielke and his table. It got to the point where Mielke called 9-1-1 and the police responded. He told them what was going on and that Campos-Duffy was interfering with his campaign. He told the police that he would appreciate them talking to the Duffys and asking them to cease and desist, which the police said was reasonable.
Mielke reported that the Duffys did leave him alone after that, but their supporters continued their harassment and interference. He said that some of the most aggressive of these attackers throughout the day were the big shots of the Marathon County GOP, who would get into his face and call him names and tell him he is evil for bringing up the truth about the Duffy's past. Of course, the Marathon County GOP has a history of demanding conformity and taking severe steps if their demands are not met.
Of course, TEA parties and violence against those that would dare to express an opposing and/or independent point of view are not uncommon.
For those of you who are interested, I could not find a copy of the video itself, or even a decent clip from it, but thanks to a pointer by Mr. Mielke, I found a few partial clips of the video including Sean Duffy and his wife, Rachel, on a site called PopModal.com**. Unfortunately, the gist of the video is lost as the makers of the video talk over it with their own commentary.
**PopModal.com calls itself the conservative alternative to YouTube. I didn't know that YouTube and their videos of dancing hamsters had any political leaning.
A couple of days ago, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran a story about another poll that was conducted by WPRI (We Prop up Republican Ideologues). The polling allegedly found that TOMMY!!! "Stick it to 'em" Thompson was leading Russ Feingold, even though TOMMY!!! isn't an announced candidate. (I'd personally be surprised if TOMMY!!! did run. This is more likely his scratching his four year itch for attention.)
The same story showed that Tom Barrett, even though he has been running for about one tenth the time of Scott Walker, is in a statistical tie:
In the governor's race, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker leads Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett 36% to 32%.The margin of error of the poll makes a Barrett-Walker race virtually even.
Now, a lot of people have already jumped all over these polls due to the fact that WPRI has a very poor reputation regarding their honesty or integrity in polling due to having been busted out by One Wisconsin Now for tweaking their data to get their desired results. Among those taking the poll on are:
Emily Mills, who wonders why the University of Wisconsin would damage their reputation by getting involved with these shady characters,
Xoff, who raises some interesting points and questions, and
Zach Wisniewski, who cites Xoff's piece and then goes on to point out the rogues' gallery of shady characters, including one of my biggest fans, Charlie Sykes. (Also note Kevin Binversie's intellectual contribution to the discussion [NSFW])
I am a little surprised that Walker and his team haven't also called out WPRI for not being a credible source of information. After all, the results of the poll, which show Walker still ahead of Mark Neumann, also shows Neumann catching up to Walker, especially in the area of favorability: And as I mentioned earlier in this post, Barrett and Walker are in a virtual tie.
It is not surprising that Walker is losing ground to both Neumann and Barrett. Neumann has been running TV ads around the state for weeks. Barrett has been in the news a lot for positive stories like bringing new companies, and with them, new jobs, to the Milwaukee area. And both Neumann and Barrett have been aided with the fact that there are almost daily reports of Milwaukee County suffering systematic failure due to the malfeasance of Walker's reign.
What is surprising is that even with all those factors, the polling didn't show Walker with huge leads over both Neumann and Barrett. After all, the polling was done by WPRI, which received $1.5 million dollars from the Bradley Foundation last year (pdf, page 25). And the Bradley Foundation is headed by Michael Grebe, who was appointed to be Walker's campaign chairman the day after donating $5,000 dollars to Walker's campaign.
If Walker's campaign chair can't even buy a favorable poll, it is a clear sign that Walker's campaign is already in deep trouble.
Scott Walker and John Chianelli continue to bungle things at BHD, allowing a cognitively delayed young woman be repeatedly sexually abused, allowing the perpetrator into the community without any precautions, and risking $60 million in revenue.
According to alert Cuteporter Janet K., Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, created an art installation in London. It’s a walk-though aviary for a flock of zebra finches, furnished with electric guitars and other musical instruments:
I wonder if Jay Bullock has any old guitars laying around. I could set this up at the northern castle.
It is common knowledge that Walker felt that the Republican nomination for governor was his by the right that it simply was his turn. Unfortunately for Walker, Mark Neumann must not have gotten that memo and is also vying for the Republican nomination. Neumann presents a real threat to Walker's chances both because Neumann has a considerable amount of personal wealth that he can dump into his campaign and because Walker's track record as Milwaukee County Executive is not very stellar and getting worse by the day.
Neumann has been putting the pressure on Walker a lot in the last month or so. Neumann has been using his considerable wealth by buying a lot of TV ad time around the state and is about to launch his third commercial later this week.
In response, Walker is now spending some of that pay-for-play loot he has garnered and is running his first ad. At the risk of forever ruining this fine site of mine, I will post it here:
Overall, it is an admittedly positive ad, which is refreshingly surprising considering the constant barrage negativity and smearing that has come from his campaign thus far.
JSOnline has already covered the commercial and had this to say, with a delicious but telling twist which I have emphasized for you:
Walker's ad, shot in his Wauwatosa home, says he returned $370,000 to taxpayers over eight years. It casts him as frugal and directs voters to BrownBagMovement.com, a site that touts his fiscal tightness by mentioning he packs his own lunch every day.
The full pay for Walker's job is $129,611 a year. He returned $60,000 annually in the years following his 2002 election, but scaled that back to $10,000 a year after his April 2008 re-election - a change that prompted criticism Wednesday from Mike Tate, chairman of the state Democratic Party.
"Scott Walker promised to give back 47 percent of his pay and then broke that promise in each of the last two years," Tate said in a statement. "He also makes noises about working for the people who eat their lunches out of brown bags, while the tax cuts he proposes would benefit only the richest one percent of Wisconsinites."
Walker's ad does not mention he's running for governor. Keith Gilkes, Walker's campaign manager, said voters will be well aware of what office he is running for by fall.
You would think with all the people that Walker has shipped in from all over the country to help run his campaign, he would have at least mentioned what he was running for. Maybe he isn't running anymore but just wanted people to know he is a cheapskate (except when it comes to his home and his swimming pool).
While that is a humorous diversion, that is not what raised a red flag for me. What did set off the alarms was the whole premise of the commercial. Namely, the claim that Walker gave back all that money to Milwaukee County.
To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever bothered to actually check to see if Walker is really returning the money. But for the sake of argument, let us say he has done as he claims (which in itself would be a rarity).
That still leaves two issues.
One, it does not jive with what Walker had promised to do. When he originally ran for county executive, Walker promised to cut his salary:
Voluntarily reduce own salary to $78,850, within 30 days
And in case you might think that this was just the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's interpretation of his promise, I was able to get a screencap of Walker's old campaign web site, via the Wayback Machine:
Obviously, since Walker's salary is still $129,611, he has not reduced his salary.
Now, I can just hear the Walker apologists yammering that he gave the money back, so it doesn't really matter that he didn't keep his promise. But they would be wrong.
It matters because of the County's pension system.
Throughout the State of Wisconsin, there is an agreement that if a person transfers from one government body to another, their time served in the first government counts for purposes of time of public service. For example, if a person worked for Washington County for ten years and then took a job in Milwaukee County, those ten years would count towards figuring that person's pension. The same goes for people changing levels of government, such as the state to a county. I also made a few quick calls tonight and was able to confirm that it also applies to elected officials.
So technically, Walker became eligible for Milwaukee County's pension the minute he took office in 2002. He is also eligible for the 2% rate, so that if Walker were to retire before the end of the 2010, his pension would be 2% times 17 years times his salary, or roughly $44,200 a year. (And I won't even get into the nagging question of whether Walker ever signed a legally binding pension waiver. I don't even want to think about that right now.)
Compare that to the average county worker, who Walker loves to vilify and continuously hammer over the same pension system that he is going to be so richly rewarded by. According to a recent audit done by the County, 70% of current county retirees are receiving less than $23,000 a year, and the average pension for a worker who served 30 years with Milwaukee County is $28,000.
No wonder Walker wasn't too concerned about meeting another one of his campaign promises. Namely, the one where he promised to fix the pension mess that got him swept into office.
There is one thing I would just love to see Walker do. Since he is so willing to stick Milwaukee County workers and elected officials with a reduced pension multiplier, will he make a promise to do the same thing with the state's pension system, which is also currently at 2%? Because if he doesn't think the same thing should happen at the state level, it does make it seem that all of his talk of frugality is nothing more than his usual empty campaign rhetoric.
And wouldn't it be be fun to see how all of the elected officials from all over the state who have already endorsed him react to that campaign promise?
A new survey shows that the job outlook in the Milwaukee metro area is among the most promising in the nation.
The report from Milwaukee-based Manpower is a snapshot of the nation's economy -- a forecast of what employers expect to do over the next few months.
The report shows that, while metro Milwaukee is still feeling the pain of thousands of jobs lost, it appears to be turning in the right direction.
It shows 21 percent of local employers will add staff over the next quarter, while only 5 percent expect to cut jobs. Those numbers tie Milwaukee for fifth-best in the country.
"I'm not sure that there's anything that sets us apart, and it's going to surprise a lot of people, but durable goods manufacturing is one of the industry sectors that's going to do well this quarter," said Melanie Cosgrove-Holmes, Manpower's vice president.
The report's findings -- that nearly 70 percent of local employers plan to maintain staffing levels --may be especially good news for those who currently have jobs.
There is no doubt that a great part of the reason for this turn around in Milwaukee's economic climate is Tom Barrett's hard work in selling Milwaukee as a good place for businesses to open up shop here. A lot of Barrett's work has been done by using agencies like the Milwaukee 7, who helped land some of the newest business to come here.
Meanwhile, Scott Walker who has been busy running around the state telling people how he is going to create 25o billion jobs (but in reality is actually causing more and more unemployment) had dismissed the Milwaukee 7 as nothing more than "lipstick on a pig."
The odd thing is that the right wingers keep crowing about how Walker is going all over the place glad handing people and schmoozing up to big businesses, all the while Milwaukee County is falling down around our ears. At the same time, they criticize Barrett for not campaigning enough, but the City of Milwaukee has a balanced budget and is in much better condition than the County in every aspect.
I can't wait to see the looks of surprise and dismay when they realize that the governor's race is going to come down to a comparison of resumes, and Walker's holding nothing more than a greasy paper bag.
In a show of solidarity, AFSCME District Council 48 is calling on its members to wear something red every Friday until a contract is negotiated in good faith according to state and federal laws.
AFSCME is also planning a rally to support the union members that have been laid off and will be laid off as Scott Walker continues to play politics with their lives, as well as the lives of every citizen that relies on county services and the lives (and pocket books) of every tax payer. The rally will be this Friday, March 12, from 11:30 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. at Clas Park (at the southern end of the County Courthouse). All are invited to come and "tell Scott Walker what we really think of him."
And here are some points that one needs to remember before you dismiss AFSCME's complaints:
The County Executive and the County Board passed a budget that is not balanced, and assumes an assortment of takeaways that the County has NEVER presented to the Union across the table. The proposals were contained in the budget and the Union has NEVER had the opportunity to respond through the negotiation process.
The County now wants to blame the Union members for the fact that the County has a deficit. This is just scapegoating - pure and simple.
If the County is really interested in having the Union members become partners in addressing the fiscal problems facing the County, then the County should ask the Union back the NEGOTIATING TABLE.
The key is for the County to Negotiate, not to DICTATE!!
For a further detailed explanation of the dilemma Scott Walker's posturing has put him, and all of Milwaukee County, into, I fully recommend reading the article by Lisa Kaiser of the Shepherd Express (note to Steve Schultze: this is what real reporting looks like):
The layoffs of 76 Milwaukee County employees was news to AFSCME District Council 48 Executive Director Richard Abelson, whose union represents the soon-to-be-unemployed workers.
Although the county is supposed to inform the union of pending layoffs and provide documentation of the financial benefits of laying off employees, Abelson said the county provided no such proof.
“They sent us a notice that they were laying people off and the layoff notices at the same time,” Abelson said. “They’ve never even attempted to sit down with us and show us their numbers.”
According to a fact sheet supplied by Fran McLaughlin, spokeswoman for Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, the county would save $1.8 million by laying off 27 security guards, 25 parks maintenance workers, nine airport employees and 15 other workers. More than $400,000 would be saved by privatizing the 27 security positions alone, the county asserts.
Abelson isn’t buying it.
“I’m questioning the upfront premise that they’re going to save $400,000,” he said. “Where do they get that number? What are the components of that number? They’ve never shared any of that information with us.”
[...]
Abelson calls the county’s 2010 budget “illegal” because the state requires counties to pass balanced budgets.
“This budget clearly was not a balanced budget,” Abelson said. “This budget presumed that there would be concessions from the unions that at the time that they passed the budget hadn’t even been proposed. I don’t know how you can stretch the definition of a legal budget to somehow include items that haven’t been proposed at the bargaining table when you have an equally binding obligation by state statute to negotiate in good faith.”
He said current negotiations with the county are at a standstill. The county has submitted its latest package of concessions as its final revised offer in arbitration, and has filed suit against AFSCME’s final offer, which is the tentative agreement that had been approved by the board committees last year.
“We can’t go forward until those issues are resolved,” Abelson said.
What is not noted in the article but is obvious to even the most casual observer is that Walker is now starting to realize how badly he screwed things up. That is why you see all of his apologists coming out of the woodwork in an effort to spin this as being the union's fault and to try to get the unions to capitulate, even though it won't save one job that Walker's got targeted for lay off in what is nothing more than political posturing for his base of fringe supporters. Needless to say, when one wants to be fair about it, the facts just don't back up their allegations.
Even though I've pointed it out before, I would be remiss if I did not again mention that Jake was absolutely spot on regarding how Walker got us to this point and why he is not fit to lead a kazoo band much less a governmental body:
This is what Tom Barrett did in the City of Milwaukee for the 2010 budget (I know, I was there), and got the needed concessions out of most City workers with fewer furlough days, and no major holes in the budget deficit. Now, the City still has structural issues in its budget, but they were lessened in this latest round of negotiations, because THE MAYOR'S OFFICE DECIDED TO NEGOTIATE AND GOT SOME OF WHAT THEY WANTED. Walker has decided to score political points with suburb boys instead of work with the unions, and the County workers have rightfully told him to shove it. The Milw. County union's act is no different than corporations shopping their facilities to local communities, trying to score any tax break they can at the expense of everyone else in that town. Strangely, angry white man radio ignores those people who work for the best deal, I suppose because they have money and white collars, while dumping on people who perform real work and have blue collars that are trying to do the same thing.
I agree that unions have to understand they can't have it all, just like corporates should. But demonizing your workers and trying to play games with their jobs is not the way to get anything done as an employer, and a very telling sign of the type of disaster someone like Walker would be as the head of a McDonald's (if he ever had a private sector job), and he's worse of being head of something we DO need, like government services.
The unions aren't asking for the sun, the moon and the stars like the right-wing Walker apologists would have you believe. They are merely asking for some good faith bargaining and negotiations. You know: Quid pro quo. That is something that even Walker should be able to understand, since that is how he tends to fund his campaign.
I've been quiet over here because I've been busy over at MCF.
Today's topics include:
The airport is breaking records, so why does Scott walker want to break the airport?
If Chancellor Carlos Santiago and Walker would only learn how to work with people instead of trying to bully them, we would all be much farther in this world.
But what can we expect. Kyle was only believing that he was the "blogger of the year," just before that unfortunate cell phone incident.
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