Just In Time For Germanfest!

You want public works employees to work for less money? Buy some of these beauts and they'll be begging to work:



Gotta love that German engineering!

AFP- WI Is At It Again!

We brought you the story of how, after finding out that WI led the nation in job losses in June and that we are 2nd in the Nation in Construction job losses(thanks Alaska), Americans for Prosperity Poverty (AFP-WI) the Koch funded shadow group, decided that this news  was so exciting for the State of Wisconsin that they decided to party!! 

They are back at it.  Now AFP-WI is holding a birthday party for deceased and discredited economist Milton Friedman! 

Milton Freidman 100^th Birthday Celebration

July 31^st

6:30pm to 8pm

Country Springs Hotel

2810 Golf Rd Pewaukee, WI

With Rep Robin Vos, AFP State Director Luke Hilgemann, President of School Choice WI Jim Bender, and Brian Pleva of American Federation for Children

It is good that they are going to celebrate a discredited economist, by having no economists in the room!   As for the collection of wingnuts speaking who want to privatize our schools so they can profit off of them,  it did not seem to work in Philadelphia! 

A Sign of the Coming Apocalypse?

Or Just a completely ridiculous idea?  

Talk about really bad fits, today Scott Walker will address attendees of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government Program on Education Policy and Governance in Cambridge, MA.  

The conference is entitled Learning from Improving School Systems at Home and Abroad: International and U.S. State Trends in Student Performance.

WOW!  I thought the people of Harvard went to school to actually learn something. I hope they are not charging to get in to this conference.   Was William Bennett busy?  Have the conference organizers NOT been paying attention to what has happened in Wisconsin the last year? 

There has not been a single thing that Governor Walker has done for public education that has "reformed it"! 

I hope the education students of Harvard either protest it OR attend and ask Scott Walker some questions after!  

We Are Having the Wrong Debate

After the horrific events in Aurora, CO as a time to talk about gun control. While I do think we need to have that conversation, the NRA has such a stronghold on our political system that we all know nothing will change and no politician will have the courage to even put reasonable controls on assault weapons.  Even if Senator Ron Johnson thinks that people in Wisconsin hunt with 100 round clips and assault weapons(no one ever accused the Sen RoJo of being intelligent).  

 The debate I think we should be having that might actually change something, in the wake of this tragedy, is healthcare!  

One of the victims of the Aurora tragedy is Caleb Medley.   Mr. Medley who is currently unemployed, was shot in the eye during the assault. 

Caleb Medley was shot in the eye in the Aurora movie theater shooting and remains in the intensive care unit in an induced coma. Medley sustained the terrible injuries only days before his wife Katie was due to give birth to a baby boy they plan to name Hugo. She now joins him in the same hospital — just one floor away — where she was set to be induced.

But even if Caleb makes a full recovery and meets his son, what happened late Friday evening at the movie theater could ruin the young family’s finances. Caleb doesn’t have health insurance, and his medical bills could amount to $2 million, according to his family.

 Caleb’s life will be forever altered by this unexpected and horrific event, a constant fear of many uninsured Americans. The Affordable Care Act — much of which will not be fully implemented until 2014 — extends health insurance to millions of uninsured Americans like Caleb.

So what should happen to Caleb??  His life is forever changed, through NO fault of his own, and now he is $2,000,000 in the hole(and with a new baby, who is another victim in this).  While the republicans are putting all of their eggs in the repeal Obamacare basket, which would help people like Caleb, they also have no alternative to replace it. 

I would love to see the republicans explain EXACTLY what should happen to Caleb and how their policies would help him.  NOT dance around the topic.  Can Paul Ryan (R-Wall St.) look into a camera(because he sure knows how to find a camera) and explain exactly how the policies he advocates for would help Caleb and his new family?  Or does he NOT care about helping people like Caleb and his newborn?   We know the audience at a republican debate let it be known that they think Caleb made his choice to have no healthcare so he should pay that price now.   Is that how the republican politicians think also? 

The democrats are not perfect on this either.  Why is Obamacre not coming into full effect until 2014?  What would they say and what have they done to help someone like Caleb? 

Since our current batch of republican politicians have brought us this coffee can health care system, its time to put out that coffee can.  

You can help Caleb Medley by donating here and joining his facebook page here!

You can also help by calling your elected representative and demanding answers!   It's time for them to stop playing games with people's lives and help the Caleb's of our great country!  

Jason Fields: The Republicans' Democrat

During the two rounds of recalls, the Republicans made a mockery of democracy and showed their disdain for the people by running fake democrats, and even running them as retreads. Fortunately, in those races, the fake Democrats were easy to spot and the Republicans' nefarious plot was easily thwarted.

But sometimes, the Republicans get good at their underhanded dealings and they get some fake Democrats who are established.

One might be able to describe Representative Jason Fields that way.

Fields created a stir when he passionately advocated for school choice from the Assembly floor, despite the fact that it would hurt the children of Milwaukee. It also got him a lot of love...from Republicans.

Charlie Sykes and other squawkers couldn't stop gushing over Fields and his ill-advised advocacy.

Likewise, Fields got some interesting supporters.

The Metropolitan Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce joined with Field's group, Democrats For Education Reform, to push for school choice and Mayor Tom Barrett's failed attempt to usurp control of the Milwaukee Public School system. Fields also became a beneficiary of the disgraced and corrupt Scott Jensen, who was embroiled in the caucus scandals and is now a force of a major pro-school profiteering group.

But Fields' questionable relationships don't stop there.

In the mailbox this evening, I received this email:

All,

Please see the attached invite and consider joining me and my “biz” partner the La Macchia Group, on Thursday, July 26th 2012 for a reception in honor of State Representative, Jason Fields.

As a current member of the Governor’s Read to Lead Task Force and the Council on Financial Literacy, and former Chair of the Financial Services Committee Jason leaves “no” question he remains committed to improving the quality of education and promoting financial literacy to the demographics of our community that need them most!

Equally, I also remain intensely involved in promoting education and financial literacy on a local and national scale – assisting youth with scholarships to support their efforts to continue their pursuit of a post-secondary education from any university, college, vocational or technology institute of choice.

Thank you in advance for consideration and please share this invite with others as well…

Here is a screencap of the attached invite:

So who are Ralph and Mary Lou La Macchia?

Well, they're big time Republican funders, that's who.

Ralph La Macchia has donated money to the likes of Terry Moulton, Rich Zipperer, Mary Panzer and Ted Kanavas.

Mary Lou La Macchia is much more liberal with her donations to conservatives. She's donated a lot of money, nearly two grand, to the likes of Terry Moulton, Alberta Darling, Rich Zipperer, Jeff Fitzgerald and Scott Walker. On top of these acts of benevolence to the malefactors, she has also given more than a $1000 to the Republic National Committee

While the donations are presumably perfectly legal, it should give one pause to wonder what Fields' true agenda is and who is he representing - his constituents or the people that want to profiteer off of them?

Fortunately for the voters in 11th Assembly District have a real progressive Democrat running for office. That person is Mandela Barnes.

Mandela Barnes

Barnes has a long history of working to improve his community, serving as a youth and workforce development specialist. Per his website, Barnes wants to revitalize the local economy and create jobs via local investment, modernize the transportation services and restore our education system.

You can also learn more about Barnes on his Facebook page. You can also help support Barnes as he goes up against the Republican machine's money by donating to his Act Blue page.

With strong progressive leaders like Barnes, we can start to restore the damage done to Milwaukee and to Wisconsin by Fields and his Republican friends.

I hope you will join me in full support of Barnes for the 11th Assembly District.

ADDENDUM: Cory Liebmann shows us that not only is Fields supported by the education profiteers, he's part of them.

Gratitude

Recall Retaliation

Among the many negative qualities that Scott Walker is known to possess, one of the most commonly recognized ones is his practice of cronyism. Walker's cronyism is so rampant that Madison could be in the running for Crony Capitol of the world.

On the flip side, another thing that Walker likes to practice a lot, but doesn't get nearly as much attention, is retaliation.

A prime example of Walker's art of retaliation is when he tried to go after Professor William Cronon of the University of Wisconsin. Cronon wrote a strong opinion piece lambasting Walker and his Republican legislative henchmen as well as a scholarly piece exposing ALEC for the first time to many people. In retaliation, Walker sent his hit men out to see if they could find a way to professionally ruin Cronon:

Why would the Wisconsin GOP want access to Cronon’s private emails?

Cronon theorizes, based on the keyword requests, that Wisconsin Republicans are trying to catch him in violation of state university rules by using a state email account to engage in “lobbying and electioneering to try to unseat these Republican legislators.” In other words, he says, Wisconsin Republicans want to damage him professionally in response to his criticism of them.

“That’s what they’re hoping to find,” Cronon says. “They’re trying to intimidate me. What they’re saying is that if an academic raises these kinds of questions, we’re going to make his life really uncomfortable. Intimidating people from asking legitimate questions is a McCarthyite tactic.”

Cronon says the Wisconsin GOP will not find evidence of what they’re looking for. “It’s not there,” he says.

Cronon wasn't the first to experience this type of harassment. Walker also tried the same thing on yours truly. Only after a lot of expense and stress, was it finally told that I was falsely accused. (I'm still waiting for CRG and Charlie Sykes to make their apologies. Good thing I'm not holding my breath.)

I have learned this evening that Walker is again exacting retribution and retaliation, this time in relation to the recall effort against him.

Walker apparently has been systematically going through the appointments he is to make to various committees and commissions around the state and comparing these names to those on the recall petitions and what roles they might have played in the recall effort. If the person in question signed the petition or had any role in the recall, they're not getting the appointment.

John Weishan

One such person is Milwaukee County Supervisor John Weishan. Weishan has been on the SEWRPC board for years. SEWRPC is the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission. However, when Weishan was again nominated for the commission by Milwaukee County Board Chairwoman Marina Dimitrijevic, Walker chose to pass him over for reappointment.

Walker's refusal to reappoint Weishan had nothing to do with wanting to put a political crony or yes man in the spot. He appointed Dimitrijevic who has also been an outspoken critic of Walker, both as county executive and as governor.

Weishan's sin was signing the recall petition. On top of that, Weishan, being a former marine, also went on tour around the state to speak out against Walker's war on veterans. And if that wasn't enough to earn Walker's wrath, Weishan, who was the one that sparked the investigation into Walkergate, also did a tour of the state to point out Walker's involvement in the scandal.

There are others who have similar stories, in that they took a visible stand against Walker, and now are being passed over for the committees, commissions and boards they were on until recently.

All of this only goes to show that not only is Scott Walker a despot, he's a petty one at that.

ALEC Rock?

From our friends at PR Watch:  More on ALEC from our friends at Brave New Films:

Also check out Alecexposed!

Who is the poster child for this ridiculous corporate takeover in WI?

 Robin Vos of course!

Eric Hovde Wants Your Vote

However, the Washington DC resident who wants to be Wisconsin's Senator can not be bothered to vote himself.  He is too busy saving the poor to vote*, and he doesn't like the choices he has had.   Maybe Eric Hovde needs to look up the definition of citizen legislator!  

Senate candidate Eric Hovde is a busy guy.

So busy, in fact, he rarely has had time to vote.

"I'm a person that's spent 75% of my life in an airplane, flying around the U.S., flying around the globe," Hovde, a community banker and hedge fund manager, told the Journal Sentinel last week. "You know a lot of what I've been up to. I built homeless shelters for street kids in Kigali, Rwanda; Mombasa, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; Mexico City; Huanuco, Peru."

Records show that Hovde registered to vote in Washington, D.C., in 2004, two years after he built his 7,700-square-foot mansion there. Of the 11 elections held in D.C. since he registered, Hovde voted in just two of them - the 2004 and '08 general presidential campaigns.

In the last presidential contest, Hovde said he voted for Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona. He did not vote in the GOP primary between McCain and former Arkan sas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
It's not just his busy schedule that has kept him away from the ballot box. He also pointed to the dearth of conservative Republicans in elections in the nation's capital.

"I'm a conservative in D.C. Do you understand that?" Hovde asked. "When it comes to a vote in Washington, D.C., and you're a conservative and your only choice is a liberal Democrat and a liberal Democrat; it's a little discouraging."

A top staffer for former U.S. Rep. Mark Neumann, a Janesville Republican, was even more pointed.
"It's bad enough that he hasn't lived in Wisconsin for 24 years," said Chip Englander, Neumann's campaign manager. "He should have at least voted where he did live."

*When Eric Hovde says he does not like to talk about his charity work, he apparently means, he does not like to talk about his charity work, UNLESS there is a reporter present! 

Do You Suffer From Constant Migraines?

From the talented Gary Markstein:

Grothman's Inappropriate "Voting Inappropriately" Comment

Think Progress did an interview with our misogynistic state senator, Glenn Grothman, regarding the Voter Suppression law, which looks like it is effectively dead, having been ruled unconstitutional twice. In the interview, Grothman admits that the voter suppression law would benefit the Republicans. That in itself is not surprising.

What is outrageous is his rationale:

“Insofar as there are inappropriate things, people who vote inappropriately are more likely to vote Democrat,” argued Grothman.

Now some wags might make a crack that anyone who votes Democratic is voting inappropriately, but that is not what he is saying. He's saying that the only time voter fraud happens, it's a Democratic vote.

He couldn't be any more wrong, and for Grothman, that's saying a lot.

Three years ago, I pointed out that the area of the electoral process most open to fraud is not at the ballot box, but with absentee ballots. Not only would a voter suppression bill not help with this, but the Republicans don't want to fix it because most of the fraud that happens here is in favor of the Republicans.

If Grothman was serious about wanting to prevent voter fraud, he should pass a bill banning squawk radio:

But when he did the same thing in 2008, he said, there was no indication that he and his wife had voted absentee.

Owing to the steady chatter on talk radio about voter fraud that day, he said, they assumed the worst.

"We were convinced we had been disenfranchised," he said. "There was supposed to be a check-off" for their absentee ballots.

But didn't he know they had mailed their absentee ballots about a week earlier?

"At that moment I was convinced I had not been counted, that my vote was gone."

And so when the poll worker handed them each regular ballots, they cast them.

However, all joking aside, what Grothman really, really needs to do is follow the example set in Pennsylvania, where they're having their own court battle over voter suppression, and tell the truth for once:

A court filing by the state of Pennsylvania, ahead of a trial starting later this week on a lawsuit filed by civil rights groups against the state’s new voter fraud law, contains an astounding admission:

The state signed a stipulation agreement with lawyers for the plaintiffs which acknowledges there “have been no investigations or prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania; and the parties do not have direct personal knowledge of any such investigations or prosecutions in other states.”

In other words, the state knows that voter fraud is a nonexistent problem, but will nonetheless defend a law that could potentially disenfranchise a huge number of the state’s voters. Of course, it’s not hard to see why the state — and particularly its Republican governor — would continue to support the measure.

But we all know better to expect that kind of honesty or integrity from Grothman or any of his Republican colleagues.

Teacher Resignations Higher Than Expected, And That's Just The Beginning

Well, well, Act 10 isn't all it cracked up to be after all:

Greenfield School Board member Cathy Walsh on Monday said that 16 teachers either resigned or retired at the end of the school year, which she said presents a more serious picture of staff turnover than the School Board was led to believe.

The administration had provided the board with resignation and retirement numbers for all staff. Those numbers showed no inordinate exodus. But Walsh said she separated teachers out and found 16 had left, compared with the six or seven that she found had been the more normal turnover over the last nine years.

The gentle reader might remember that the Greenfield School Board received some unwanted attention last fall when they tried to ramrod through a draconian employee handbook and were called out on it by the teachers.

The board's attitude towards the teachers was so egregious and outrageous that the negative response they received inspired them to be one of the few, if not the only, school board to issue a press release in an effort to try to cover their behinds.

It really shouldn't shock anyone that teachers are resigning, especially from the districts that treat them with such disrespect. People will only tolerate so much before they look for greener pastures where they can get paid better and be treated better. Unfortunately, because of Act 10, many of our finest teachers have and will continue to find those greener pastures outside of Wisconsin, further contributing to the brain drain the state is suffering from.

As with the Milwaukee County child welfare system, we can also expect that the turnover rate will continue to greatly escalate as they continue to put the screws to the teachers as far as their pay and working conditions go.

The end result will be either a completely broken system opened up for education profiteers or a need to substantially increase the spending to maintain a system that meets the minimum expectations of the community. Either way, I would expect that the cost will end up being much greater than any savings that Scott Walker might trumpet about.

Act 10 has already cost the state dearly, and we are only at the beginning of the misery it will cost us.

Walker's Emissions Stunt Leaves People Exhausted

In yet another moronic move by Scott Walker and his Republican legislative henchman, they have thrown drivers and taxpayers to the wolves.

Instead of having a company whose sole job is to test vehicles for emissions standards, Walker, in his infinite lack of wisdom moved that responsibility to car repair shops, who would stand to rake in a lot of money when cars "don't pass" the test.

Walker's official stance is that it would save taxpayers a whopping $600,000, which translates to a whole dime for each of us!

But as a cogent person might have deduced, it's really not a good idea.

First of all, Walker's administration knew six months ahead of the initiation of the change, that it would cost 62 jobs.

Then there is a problem with the math. Under the old system, each car tested cost $4.95. Under the new system, the price per car dropped to $2 per car. We also know that in 2010, 626,099 vehicles were tested. Given those stats, the state should have saved $1,846,726.55.

So where did the extra $1.2 million go to? Apparently it went to pay the administrative cost for the new agency, SysTech International LLC, which is located in Utah.

If one figures in that the 62 people are collecting unemployment compensation, and in the deplorable job market situation in Fitzwalkerstan, they probably will be for a long time, that $600K will be eaten up in about 40 weeks.

So, so far, we have very little, if anything in savings, 62 people laid off and millions of Wisconsin dollars going to Utah. Brilliant, right?

But as I always advise the gentle reader, with all things Walker, there is more. There is always more.

Now, the repair garage owners are loving this new system. They say that it's bringing in new customers and hey, if the car fails the test, that's even more money for them.

But the fox would also love being put in charge of guarding the chicken coop.

Just two weeks into the new system, we are seeing problems with the system. The first red flag comes from a sudden increase in the number of cars that just happen not to pass:

Just two weeks into the shift of Wisconsin emissions testing to 198 repair shops and dealerships, the number of failing vehicles is already higher than normal.

For the past two years, an average of 6% to 7% of vehicles failed their tests at the nine centralized stations in southeastern Wisconsin, according to state data. But the average fail rate has increased to 9% since the test sites shifted to private businesses on July 2, according to a Journal Sentinel analysis of the 18,600 tests conducted through July 18.

Eight of the new testing locations had a fail rate of 20% or more.

As one could have expected, Walker's administration's attitude to this apparent skulduggery is "Nothing to see here, folks. Carry on."

And as many people could testify, a lot of places, even when you go in for something simple like an oil change, like to try to upsell the customer into buying a service or part that they don't really need.

And yup, we're seeing that with Walker's system too:

Marianne Meunier said her 2007 Chevy Malibu had never failed a vehicle emissions test, so when a mechanic on Milwaukee's north side told her this month that the car had failed and would need $2,500 worth of repairs to pass an inspection, she was distraught.

"I haven't had a problem with my car," she said. "I didn't have the money to fix it. My husband is really sick. So we have to watch how much we spend."

Meunier, 82, was skeptical but planned to take out a loan to pay for the repairs, which consisted of a broken sensor, a fuel pump part and a broken circuit board.

Her son, Terry Meunier, persuaded her to take her car to an auto-parts store instead, where a worker hooked it up to a meter that confirmed she needed the new sensor and fuel pump unit, but no circuit board. Based on that, a mechanic at another site gave her a new estimate of $417.

"That's for a tuneup, replacing the NOx sensor and replacing the sending unit in the fuel pump in the gas tank," Terry Meunier said. "When I found out they were trying to rip my mother off for $2,500 for work she didn't even need . . . Governor Walker shouldn't have done what he did. I didn't have a problem going to those emission test places. Now I have to go to these garages and deal with these crooks."

The report goes on to say that five of the 198 new facilities already have an "F" rating with the Better Business Bureau.

Well, doesn't that just raise your confidence level?

In sum, we have yet another one of Walker's "money-saving" schemes that actually saves next to nothing under the best of conditions, costs the state another 62 jobs and causes car owners to have to track down where to go and worry about getting ripped off.

Yep. Just another day in Corporate Fitzwalkerstan.

Mitt Steps In It Again!

Mitt Romney recently had a very very bad week.  In order to TRY and change the tide that was running against him, he took a quote from President Obama and grossly twisted it into a different reality! 

Well not only was he lying about what President Obama actually said, it turns out that he had said almost the exact same thing that the President had said, that so upset Mitt.  Then he doubled down and said the same thing again to our Olympic Athletes. 

All the while running ads pounding on President Obama:

Mitt used hard core republican Jack Gilchrist who owns Gilchrist Metal Fabricating Company. 

“My father’s hands didn’t build this company? My hands didn’t build this company? My son’s hands aren’t building this company?” New Hampshire businessman Jack Gilchrist, president of Gilchrist Metal, asks in the ad that’s been making waves since last week.

 Forgetting the fact that if Jack's father built the company then, yes someone did build that company for him, it still turns out that Mr. Gilchrist might have needed a little help in building his company!    Who knew? 

In the Mitt Romney campaign web and television ads that received national attention last week, a blunt Jack Gilchrist of Gilchrist Metal Fabricating in Hudson tells President Barack Obama that he, his father and his son _ and not the government _ built his company.

But as it turns out, Gilchrist did receive some government help for his business, albeit a long time ago.

In 1999, Gilchrist Metal received $800,000 in tax-exempt revenue bonds issued by the New Hampshire Business Finance Authority “to set up a second manufacturing plant and purchase equipment to produce high definition television broadcasting equipment,” according to a New Hampshire Union Leader report at the time.

The federal government allocates to each state a certain amount of tax-exempt bonding capacity each year for business and housing loans.

Because the bond buyers do not pay federal taxes on the interest, the interest rate for the borrower is typically lower than that of standard bank financing.

Last year, Gilchrist Metal also received two U.S. Navy sub-contracts totaling about $83,000 and a smaller, $5,600 Coast Guard contract in 2008, according to a government web site that tracks spending.

As Capper likes to point out with these republicans:  But wait there's more:

 He also said his company received a U.S. Small Business Administration loan totaling “somewhere south of” $500,000 in the late 1980s.

He said his business has also received matching funds from the New England Trade Adjustment Assistance Center (NETAAC), which is federally-funded.

Gilchrist said about 10 percent of his company's contracts are defense-related.

I love the smell of republican hypocrisy and fake outrage in the morning!

Of course, the Romney campaign stands by their ad!

 When you are the etch-a-sketch candidate you shake it up and change your mind any second!  

Why WMC is Irrelevant!

They just gave their poorly named " working for Wisconsin" award to Robin Vos and Van Wanggaard.

What have these two helped usher into Wisconsin that has earned them this award?

Monthly job losses and we are currently #2 in the country in construction job losses!

Good Job guys?  What exactly does Kurt Bauer think working for Wisconsin means?