Lies, lies and WisGOP-damning reality

First of all, two great pieces of reporting work from the Left Cheddarsphere this week.

First, a great job of connecting the dots by James Rowen on the closing of the Wausau paper plant in Brokaw and that company's connections the Bradley Foundation, Wall Street, and $4.5 million payouts to its CEO. Required reading to show how these all tie together to slam a Central Wisconsin town into oblivion.

Next, here's Jeff SImpson at Blogging Blue exposing the lies in that pro-Walker ad wiith the Cottage Grove teacher. Monona Grove schools already have numerous classes above their desired standard due to Walker's budget, filled this year's budget holes with Obama stimulus money and NOT the tools, and their own superintendent says the district is in a $1.5 million hole under Walker's budget for NEXT year, with no tool adjustments to be made.

When you have to lie and omit these things to the public, you're damn near done. And why are they lying? Because of this reality.

News came out this week showing Wisconsin to be a national leader. Unfortunately, it was as the state with the biggest increase in unemployment claims for the Thanksgiving week. And the bottom of the page adds that it wasn't by a little.

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending November 26 were in Wisconsin (+8,172), Michigan (+2,643), Iowa (+2,228), Indiana (+1,645), and Ohio (+1,500) while the largest decreases were in California (-27,440), Texas (-8,543), Florida (-5,306), South Carolina (-4,670), and New York (-4,614).

Wisconsin's new unemployment claims have been consistently creeping up the last 6 weeks, so don't expect Wisconsin's worst in the nation job performance under the Walker budget to improve any time soon. By the way, any report of that in the Journal Communications, Inc. newspaper? No, of course there wasn't. Hmmmm...

Maybe if we get back to valuing good, old-fashioned skill advancement and hard work, we can get our Wisconsin way back. I had business in NE Wisconsin this week, and caught this headline from the Shawano Leader. KI is expanding their operations in Bonduel, adding an estimated 27 new jobs in that small town. And why did they decide to do this? Because Wisconsinites are better workers than Confederates.

KI plans to phase out production at its plant in Pontotoc, Miss., beginning in January. The plant, which has about 40 employees, will close by June 1. Manufacturing of seating and table products done in Pontotoc will move to Bonduel.

KI started production at the Bonduel facility in 1998. It employs 176 people and is the fourth largest KI manufacturing facility in the nation.

With the closing of the Pontotoc facility, KI also will convert its manufacturing facility in Tupelo, Miss., to a warehouse and distribution center; two of Tupelo's product lines will move to Bonduel. Because of the changes, KI will drop its staffing in Tupelo from 55 to about 30 people.

Yes, it's a net loser for the country (those 27 jobs added come at the expense of 65 in Mississippi), and it's a big reason why the whole "play one state off vs. another with tax incentives" idea is stupid, but it sure tells you something when KI feels it's better off with half the employees in Wisconsin rather than keep their operations in Mississippi. So much for the theory about the low-tax, low-wage South being a more desirable place for manufacturing jobs, huh? Doesn't matter much when you have smarter, better workers in the North. Kinda makes you think a winning strategy is to invest in tech schools that teach needed manufacturing skills and improve K-12 education so companies want to locate in an area that values high-skill, adapatable workers.

Oh wait, Walker cut the fuck out of technical schools and K-12. Sounds like we need a new governor to get more KI-type expansions on track for Wisconsin's future, don't we?