Here Comes Their Hero

I'm still amazed when I hear the right whine about the liberal media. To begin with, isn't that playing the victim card?

Yes. Yes it is.

But the real stunner is that they think it even exists in the first place. Take a look at this recent piece about Scott Walker in The New York Times.

On a recent afternoon, Mr. Walker, who is only the third governor in the nation to face a recall election, dashed onto a makeshift stage on a loading dock here as supporters screamed, the song “Only in America” pounded from loudspeakers, a bank of television cameras rolled and Mr. Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, beamed behind him. 

With the remnants of a sinus infection and round-the-clock campaign stops lingering in his voice, Mr. Walker urged the crowd not to let up, declaring that union bosses were pouring money into the state to remove him because, he said, “they don’t like the fact that we’ve got a governor here who stood up and took on the powerful special interests.”

That sounds to me more like a description of Bruce Springsteen's latest concert than a political event. I'll leave Walker's line about special interests and pouring money alone...for now:)

Of course, the Times isn't the only paper doing it. My local paper, the Minneapolis Star and Tribune, which has been called the Star and Sickle on more than one occasion, has this article in today's paper.

The right finds its champion: Wisconsin Gov. Walker

"People recognize you've got to have bold and courageous people in politics to take on the status quo and say, 'This isn't working,'" said Kurt Bauer, president of the organization. "If we can't do it in Wisconsin -- if we recall Governor Walker for doing something that was difficult but necessary -- it's a bad omen for the rest of the nation."

The whole piece is one giant love fest for Governor Walker.

Here's another piece from Politico  which essentially makes Scott Walker look like a victim. And here's a list from RCP with the same general themes I have mentioned thus far.  Hell, even the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has endorsed Walker! 

So, I'm wondering...where's that liberal media again?

An Anarcho-Capitalist Pleasure Palace

With the Wisconsin recall election less than two week away, it looks as though Scott Walker will hold off the recall efforts. I predict he will win. Of course, he may not be able to govern in the way he would like because I also predict that one of the four senate recall elections will flip back to the Democrats and tie him up at the State House. Honestly, though, I don't think this matters to him as he now has his sights set on the national stage.

Politico has a great piece on how the recall elections have turned Walker into a conservative hero. Indeed, the right wing media industrial complex with its all too willing audience will welcome him with open arms and shower him with money on how he stood up to the evil teachers and civil servants who are ruining our economy on a daily basis.

So why did the recall effort fail? Again, Politico lays it all out here.  In my view, there were several factors that inhibited the Democrats. Tom Barrett is a great guy and would be a magnificent governor but he already lost that election once. The alternative (Kathleen Falk) was far too liberal. Had the Democrats put up a great candidate...someone like Russ Feingold, for example....Walker would have been toast. There was also the issue of recall fatigue. People these days just can't pay attention that long and give a shit. Believe me, I know, I'm a teacher:)

I guess what frustrates me the most about all of this is the ignorance of the facts. When it comes to jobs, neither side in the recall election can claim victory. The latest jobs numbers show no real significant movement either way. Certainly Walker is well short of the 250,000 jobs that he promised to create but no one really thinks is was serious (he is a politician, after all) and it won't matter if he ends up with a net loss. His supporters will still be there because they don't want to admit they were wrong (shocking, I know).

Lost in all of this is Walker's promise to create 10,000 new businesses in his first term with his private sector friendly policies. How's that going? Well, not so good. 

The scorecard: After one year of the Walker era, there were 9,485 fewer businesses than at the end of 2010, Gov. Jim Doyle's final year in office. It's improved somewhat in recent months, but the total of existing entities was still down 4,338 as of April 30, 2012, compared with December 2010. The picture is worse if you look only at Wisconsin business entities doing business here, and exclude out-of-state businesses that must register here to transact business. Those "domestic” business entities were down 10,189 after Walker"s first year, and down a total of 5,741 after 16 months. So the numbers have gone backward.

Hmm....sort of reminds me of all the numbers I have been putting up about how the economy does worse when there is a Republican in the White House. Of course, this doesn't matter, though. Again, to admit fault....

The one thing that I do feel pretty good about (aside from one of the state senators likely getting the boot) is that guys like Walker always end up with the same fate. Indeed, the FBI probe that is currently going on in Wisconsin may come back to haunt him if not something else. But for now, though, it's a pretty bitter pill considering the nearly one million people in Wisconsin who are currently cheering to be ruled by the Koch Brothers.

Hey, maybe Wisconsin could be part of RandLand as well. I'd have to get my mom and John Waxey out of there first, though, before it turns into an anarcho-capitalist pleasure palace!!

A Cheezy Update

It's been a while since I talked about Wisconsin and Scott Walker and, with all the latest news, it's time for an update. The recall election has been set for June 5th with a Democratic primary on May 8th. Tom Barrett, the Milwaukee mayor and Democratic challenger in 2010 whom Walker ultimately defeated, will run again. Kathleen Falk, former Dane County leader, will compete with Barrett in the primary.

Recall that Barrett made national news when, as the mayor of Milwaukee, he intervened in a dispute, at the Wisconsin State Fair,  to try to protect a woman being attacked and ended up being beaten by a tire iron while defending her.

I think that Barrett is a much better candidate than Falk who strikes me as too much of a contrast with Walker. Barrett only lost by 124,000 votes and, with nearly 1 million signatures gathered for Walker's recall, seems a better challenger.

The recall election itself is going to be tight because neither side can really claim that Walker has done a good job or a bad job. Take a look at this graphic.

While Scott Walker certainly hasn't lived up to this promise, he hasn't exactly done anything that is deeply disastrous. The Wisconsin jobs reports for March, April and May will have quite the level of scrutiny leading up to the election. If they show any sort of job loss, he's toast. Any job gains and he might squeak it out.

The latest polls show an even 48-48 split on Walker and a Democratic challenger so it may simply come down to turnout. But remember that 2 GOP Senators were recalled last year and Walker isn't the only one being recalled in this election. The Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch and GOP Senators Scott L. Fitzgerald, Van H. Wanggaard, Terry Moulton and Pam Galloway are also being recalled. Fitzgerald is safe but Galloway has already resigned her seat for family health reasons which leaves it totally open. She won by only 3,000 votes in the last election. Wanggaard won by the same margin in 2010 with Moulton winning by a couple thousand more. Any of these three seats could flip which means that even if Walker wins, he won't be able to push through any sort of agenda.

So, it's going to be interesting to see what happens in Wisconsin. Oh yeah, there's a primary there tomorrow. Mitt is going to win and pretty much sew up the nomination.

Victory?

Today I'm wondering where the victory is that both sides are claiming in the recall elections in Wisconsin last night. The Democrats fell one short of the three elections they needed to take back the Senate and the GOP lost two seats. Yet both sides are claiming victory.

The only victory I see is a win for polarity. Take a look at the results from last night's election. Granted, this is a special election which means only the most dedicated turn out but I think we can see from the numbers how evenly split the state is when it comes to politics.I suppose the saving grace in all of this is that the Democrats are more mobilized going into 2012. And they did take two seats away from the GOP so I guess that's something.

A victory in my eyes would be for all the working class people who voted for the person with the R next to their name realize two things. One, Republicans and the "job creators" that support them are not going to shower you with magical job dust because they don't believe in middle class driven economies. To put it simply, they don't give a shit about you and have brainwashed you into your vote. Two, you are not going to someday be one of these people and then have to fend off poor people trying to steal your money.

Your anger and fear are being manipulated into hate. Time to wake up, folks!

The Rules They Don't Live By

A while back, Vann Jones (former climate guy for President Obama and current socialist/fag lover/grandma plug puller/statist who wants to rape all of our children) was asked why the Republicans get to behave the way they do. His answer?

"Because they are assholes."

He got fired over the remark by President Obama.

Gotcha right winger James O'Keefe captured former NPR exec Ron Schiller saying that the Tea Party was racist and generally slamming conservatives. He was fired along with Vivian Schiller (no relation) from NPR for his comments.

Sensing a pattern here? Other than the fact that Jones and Schiller were both accurate, of course:)

It's pretty simple. Generally speaking, the right wing of America does not have to live by the rules. They are, in fact, assholes and get to do pretty much whatever they want. They can call Barack Obama "the magic Negro" and it's not racist. They can sting other people in heavily edited videotapes but refuse to allow themselves to be videotaped as is the case with Mr. O'Keefe (so much for him being the right's answer to Michael Moore as Moore can wait to have his mug anywhere people will have him). Or they can say things like this:

Pussy. And YOU ARE STILL WRONG. NPR is run and produces nothing but liberal drivel. Pussy.

Yet I am the one with "voices in my head."

Democrats, liberals, and progressives have to live by the rules. Conservatives don't. And the more the left lives by them, the less the right does. This has lead to the right trying to "catch" the left in not living by them so they can (in typical school yard bully fashion) point and say, "See? They do it too!! N'yah N'yah!" See, when people like Schiller or Jones say things like they did, they get fired. When Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin says it, they get more money and supporters cheering them. Understand the difference between conservatives and liberals these days? It gets worse.

Governor Walker and the rest of the GOP in Wisconsin ignored a judge's ruling and are moving ahead with the bill they passed anyway. Starting on April 21st, union dues will no longer be collected from workers paychecks. The state of Wisconsin will also begin deducting more money for health benefits from each state worker's check. They had the law published already which basically means they are already in contempt. If they actually take this next step, they will have defied a judge's ruling twice. But, hey, she's a fucking commie so fuck her!

Will they do it? They say they are going to but I'm more interested in their frame of mind which is pretty much how most conservatives around the country think. They are under the (quite mistaken) impression that liberals cheated when they passed health care. Libs shoved it down their throats and rammed it through (time out for a chuckle on the penis metaphors) and, in their very warped minds, they can now do the "same" thing. Except it's not the same but they don't really know the difference. We are dealing very low emotional intelligence after all.

I'm curious to see how far they will get-both with the law and the American voter-but one thing is very, very true and I've said it all along. It's not that they don't like government. That's just their t 8 year old boy temper tantrum talking and looking for something to pick on. It's that they don't like certain laws and think that they don't all apply to them. Out of this comes a general attitude and perception-which is hilariously ironic when you think about it but perfectly consistent with their interaction and behavior with people on the left. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind, given how they continually flaunt the rules, that they feel this way and it's one simple word.

Entitled.

Classic Overreach

After last night's vote in Wisconsin, I received a flurry of panic emails and calls. Most of you know that I have a vested interest in what is happening in WI as both my mother and best friend (John Waxey) are public employees of the state. While I am concerned about the vote, I guess I'm looking at the bigger picture.

In the short run, it will be interesting to see what the AG of WI does. Will he allow the vote? Regardless of what he does, the recall effort of Senators is underway. It's reasonable to assume that a few are going to be recalled and voted out of office. So, in the next few months, we could see a shift in the WI state senate that would put Democrats in chage. In the long term, you can bank on Walker being recalled. The question is...how much damage can he do in a year? If some Senators get recalled, it will be limited.

So, I guess I'm not of the mind today that we are all being thrown into a boiling pit of sewage yet. Honestly, I think it's classic GOP overreach. My chief concern right now is the pensions. There is no fucking doubt whatsoever that private concerns who have backed Walker want to rob the pensions in Wisconsin. That's where this is headed and where the ultimate battle will be fought. This is my mother's retirement and I shudder at the thought of those despicable people doing what they did back in 2008 to the entire country.

Tell The Truth and Run

Things seem to be getting more interesting and stranger by the minute in Wisconsin. Meetings at the state line...a few GOP Senators starting to question supporting the bill....a pregnant Democrat who might give birth sometime soon...

So, while we watch this all unfold, let's take a step back and take a look at the 20 lies Scott Walker has been peddling over the last few weeks (courtesy of Russ Filtered News). These are some of the same lies we have seen in comments as well so it's nice to be able to finally dispense with them.

Walker: His bill is about fixing a budget crisis.

The truth: Even Fox News’ Shepherd Smith couldn’t swallow that one, declaring that it’s all about politics and union busting, and “to pretend that this is about a fiscal crisis in the state of Wisconsin is malarkey.”

Walker: says he campaigned on his budget repair plan, including curtailing collective bargaining.

“We introduced a measure last week, a measure I ran on during the campaign, a measure I talked about in November during the transition, a measure I talked about in December when we fought off the employee contracts, an idea I talked about in the inauguration, an idea I talked about in the state of the state. If anyone doesn’t know what’s coming, they’ve been asleep for the past two years.”

The truth: Walker, who offered many specific proposals during the campaign, did not go public with even the sketchiest outline of his far-reaching plans to kill collective bargaining rights. He could not point to any statements where he did. In fact, he was caught on tape boasting to what he thought was his billionaire backer that he had “dropped the bomb.”

Walker: keeps saying that “almost all” of the protesters at the Capitol are from outside the state

The truth: “The vast majority of people protesting are from here — Wisconsin and even more from Dane County,” said Joel DeSpain, public information officer for the Madison Police Department.

Walker: He wants to negotiate.

The truth: He won’t negotiate, but he’ll pretend to so he can trick the 14 Dem senators into allowing a vote on his bill. Walker recently offered to actually sit down and speak with the minority leader – something he should have done anyway and long ago – but only if the rest of the senators came back with him. Why?


“…legally, we believe, once they’ve gone into session, they don’t physically have to be there. If they’re actually in session for that day and they take a recess, the 19 Senate Republicans could then go into action and they’d have a quorum because they started out that way…But that would be the only, if you heard that I was going to talk to them, that would be the only reason why. We’d only do it if they came back to the capital with all 14 of them. And my sense is, hell, I’ll talk to them. If they want to yell at me for an hour, you know, I’m used to that, I can deal with that. But I’m not negotiating.”

Walker: says his budget-repair bill would leave collective bargaining “fully intact”

The truth: Walker revealed his own lie in the same radio interview when he said it was necessary to use his bill to strip collective bargaining rights, and in his own Feb. 11, 2011 letter to employees about his plan cited “various changes to limit collective bargaining” to the rate of base pay.

Walker: claims that states without collective bargaining having fared better in the current bad economy.

The truth: According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, three of the 13 non-collective bargaining states are among the 11 states facing budget shortfalls at or above 20% (Texas, Louisiana, North Carolina). Another, South Carolina, comes in at a sizable 17.4%. Nevada, where state employees have no collective bargaining rights (but local employees do) has the largest percentage shortfall in the country, at 45.2%. All in all, eight non-collective-bargaining states face larger budget shortfalls than Wisconsin.

Walker: Public employees are more richly compensated than their public sector counterparts.

The truth: According to the Economic Policy Institute, wages and salaries of state and local employees are lower than those for private sector employees with comparable earnings determinants such as education and work experience. State workers typically are under-compensated by 8.2% in Wisconsin.

Walker: said we needed a “repair” bill to address a payment owed to Minnesota of nearly $60 million and money owed to the Patient’s Compensation Fund in the tune of $200-plus million.

The truth: Walker’s budget repair bill addresses neither issue.

Walker: said that our budget problems are largely due to employee wages.

The truth: Total salaries and compensation in the last budget were 8.5% of the entire state budget.

Walker: “The alternative” to higher state worker pension and health care payments “is to look at 1,500 layoffs of state employees or close to 200,000 children who would be bumped off Medicaid-related programs.”

The truth: Federal law prevents Walker from taking away the health care coverage of 200,000 low-income and disabled children. Later, Walker told a Madison radio station that the layoff was merely a ploy to gain some political leverage: “I needed to get their attention to show how serious we were about having a balanced budget,” Walker said on the “Sly in the Morning” show on WTDY radio.

Walker: “We’ve seen local union after local union rush to their school boards, their city councils, their technical school boards and rush through contracts in the past two weeks that had no contributions to the pension and no contribution to health care. And, in fact, in one case in Janesville, they actually were pushing through a pay increase. Actions do speak louder than words.”

The truth: Of the 11 such contracts provided as examples by Walker’s staff, all 11 include some employee contributions to health insurance. PolitiFact Wisconsin, which too frequently gets the facts wrong and arrives at strained conclusions, did, at least, contact the 11 communities:

Madison: Unions in the state’s second biggest city have been negotiating contracts for more than a year. Their pacts expired at the beginning of 2010. Contracts with two of Madison’s biggest public unions settled before Walker was inaugurated Jan. 3, 2011, said Brad Wirtz, Madison human resources director. He said who said those deals set the template for the remaining unions, who reached agreement on wages and other key financial issues after Walker took office but before Feb. 11, when Walker announced his plan.


Sheboygan County: Adam Payne, the county’s administrator, said the county’s agreement with the unions was reached between negotiators before Feb. 11 and it mirrors pacts reached with other unions late last year. “There was no special treatment,” Payne said noting the County Board approved the contract at a regularly scheduled meeting.


Janesville: The tentative agreement for school custodians was reached Jan. 25, 2011 — before Walker’s proposals were made public. Eric Levitt, city manager, said that in January he had set a mid-February target to settle contracts with city workers, so the talks continued on the previously set timetable. The two sides were close to reaching tentative agreements prior to Walker’s Feb. 11 announcement, Levitt said. He said the city felt that because of its obligation to negotiate in good faith, it was necessary to continue the talks after the governor made his call for increased payments by employees.


LaCrosse County Administrator Steve O’Malley said the county didn’t rush things since negotiations started last year and the first tentative agreement with a local was reached in December.


Racine City Administrator Thomas Friedel that Racine had been negotiating with bargaining units representing Department of Public Works and clerical workers since summer of 2010 and reached tentative agreements well before Walker made his move.


Milwaukee Area Technical College: Like all of the other governments, the technical college and the union representing teachers and other workers had been talking for months, well before Walker was elected. The board and the American Federation of Teachers Local 212 reached tentative agreement on Feb. 10 — the day before Walker’s announcement. The agreement froze wages for two years.

Walker: “I don’t have anything to negotiate. We are broke in this state. We have been broke for years.” and “We’re broke. We don’t have any more money.”

The truth: The NY Times says “It’s all obfuscating nonsense, of course, a scare tactic employed for political ends.” Even the hyper-conservative Wall Street Journal calls out Walker on this lie. The notion that the state needs to refinance the debt because it’s broke and can’t make its debt payments is “completely wrong,” said Frank Hoadley, the state finance director. Joshua Zeitz, municipal finance analyst for MF Global, said, the shortfall — about 0.5% of the state’s overall budget — is a fairly inconsequential amount. “It’s becoming increasingly clear that this is a question more of politics than it is of a budget crisis,” Zeitz added. ”There’s a good amount of political theater in what you’re seeing,” said Tom Kozlik, municipal credit analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott.

If Walker were truly serious about balancing the budget, he would not be proposing a $36 million cut in the state’s capital gains tax or a $46 million corporate tax cut, on top of the millions of dollars in tax cuts he and the Republican legislature have already approved. Walker could balance his current budget by ending a variety of special interest tax dodging that is occurring in his state.

Walker: state employees pay next to nothing for their pensions and that it is all a big taxpayer give-away

The truth: Forbes — yes, the conservative Forbes! — says Walker is lying:


If the Wisconsin governor and state legislature were to be honest, they would correctly frame this issue. They are not, in fact, asking state employees to make a larger contribution to their pension and benefits programs as that would not be possible — the employees are already paying 100% of the contributions.


What they are actually asking is that the employees take a pay cut.


Pulitzer Prize winning tax reporter, David Cay Johnston, said so, too, at tax.com

Walker: said his budget repair bill, which guts the right of most public employees across the state to engage in collective bargaining, will deliver “the tools” local governments and school districts need to balance their budgets. “We cannot put this burden on local governments.”

The truth: Walker is going to both slash state aids and block local governments and school boards from raising taxes. And, of course, Walker’s numbers don’t match anything like reality.

Walker: claims he’s supported by silent majority.

The truth: Majority of Wisconsin residents (nearly 6 in 10) — and a majority of Americans — oppose his attack on collective bargaining and support the Dem 14 blocking it. Gallup found it. The CBS/NY Times poll found it. NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found it, too. The polls are so strong, even the reliably Republican Rasmussen couldn’t spin away from it. The public also overwhelmingly rejects the whole “public employees vs taxpayers” canard.

Walker: He wants to avoid layoffs.

The truth: Layoffs are implicit in his budget. Walker’s budget eliminates 21,325 state jobs

Walker: “To protect our schools, to protect our local governments, we need to give them the tools they’ve been asking for, not just for years but for decades.”

The truth: All four major state associations representing schools and local governments (not their employees) say this isn’t true.

Walker: The Dem 14 who are in Illinois to deny a Senate quorum needed to pass Walker’s budget repair bill are to blame for the layoffs he says he’s about to make to state workers.

The truth: Walker spoke of using layoff threats as political leverage: “We might ratchet that up a little bit, you know.” in his phony phone call with the faux Koch brother. Also, as noted above, Walker’s budget eliminates 21,325 state jobs.

Walker: “I have great respect for those who have chosen a career in government. I really do.”

The truth: Comedian Jon Stewart noted: ”‘I really do’ is a dead giveaway for ‘I really don’t,’ That’s what’s known in the business as the convincing clause. ‘I love you. I really do. That’s why breaking up with you right now is so difficult.’” The contempt he has displayed — in his bill, in his refusal to negotiate with the unions, in his refusal to negotiate with the Democrats and in his phony phone call — reveals why he felt the need for a convincing clause.

Walker admin: The protesters did $7.5 million of damage to the Capitol building by putting signs on marble walls with tape.

The truth: No professional estimate for clean-up has been performed. The Walker-appointed state facilities administrator would not support that estimate and said he’s not seen any damage by the protesters.