Hey GOPs, when you're lying and hiding, you losing

Two classic examples of the exceeding levels of cynicism that define today's Wisconsin Republican Party. Both of these claims are in reaction to a failing and flailing Walker Administration, and both can be easily blown up based on what we already know.

The first is a tired rehash of a Walker campaign talking point. The press release is titled Backward Burke: Wisconsin Ranked 42nd in the Nation for Job Growth When Mary Burke Was Commerce Secretary." This is an argument dating back to numbers from the Quarterly Census on Employment and Wages from 2005-2007, and I showed how cynical and BS this claim was when they first tried it out 2 months ago.

..... the Bush years were brutal for the Midwest economy, in no small part due to massive offshoring of jobs in the previously-industrial Midwest, as well as lower population growth than the rest of the nation. In every one of the years between 2003 and 2007, more than half of the 7 Midwestern states had job rankings below 30th, so it's not that surprising that Wisconsin struggled in that same period.

Walker has been lucky enough to have his 3 years of office coincide with the jobs recovery under President Obama, and the new growth in the Midwest that has happened in the wake of the auto bailout and other measures that have helped reverse the decline under Dubya.

What Walker and campaign bubblehead spokesperson Alleigh Marre conveniently leave out is that Wisconsin was solidly middle-of-the-pack in the 3 years Mary Burke was at Commerce, ranging between 3rd and 5th in the Midwest. By comparison, Wisconsin has never been better than 6th place for job growth in any year since Walker took office, and was dead last for job growth in Walker's first two years, as well as 2011-2013 combined. These guys are truly out of ideas if they're trying tho slip that weak sauce by the media again.

Speaking of weak sauce, Ashley Furniture is now comically backtracking on the revelations over the weekend that they were slated to receive $6 million in WEDC corporate welfare, and still allowed to lay off over 1,900 of their employees in western Wisconsin. Instead, they're claiming, the Wisconsin State Journal misread the memo, and that they really didn't mean it when they said they might have to going lay people off.

Company lawyer Bill Koslo said in a statement that the job guarantee number "just sets the base line of the risk Ashley was willing to accept as a good Samaritan to the City of Arcadia."

"It is Ashley's intent to add jobs at all of its locations," Koslo's statement said.

Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state's business lobby, shared the statement Monday with the Wisconsin State Journal. The newspaper reported Sunday that the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. board in January approved the tax credits in a 9-2 vote. The award had not been made public because WEDC and the company have not reached a final agreement....

The State Journal contacted the company multiple times last week, and on Friday afternoon it confirmed the conditions of the credits. But that statement made no reference to the company adding jobs. Rather, it warned that "Wisconsin will lose a significant number of jobs" if the tax credits — to be used to reroute a creek, allowing for the company's expansion — are not granted.

The Ashley officials are claiming now that the 50% job loss figure was merely a worst-case scenario that would allow them to stay open in case something happened involving the wetland that the company's factory resides on, and the corporate welfare would help to reroute a creek in order to reduce the potential damage). They weren't really planning on laying off all those employees, NOOOOOOO. They just need some help to reduce the chances of a certain disaster happening (instead of, you know, paying for it themselves or going through the civil servants at the DNR). And the $20,000 kicked back donated to Walker by Ashley's top executives 2 weeks later was totally unrelated to this as well. Tell me another fairy tale.

And it's hilarious that Ashley won't directly talk to reporter Matt DuFour, but instead handed out a statement through the right-wing oligarchs at WMC, who apparently are better at bullshitting about backroom boodle with their boys in the Wisconsin GOP. You can tell DuFour and company aren't buying what Ashley's trying to sell- mostly because they weren't born last night.

As a former high school teacher, I've also developed a pretty good idea when less-than-savory people are caught, but still think they can sneak stuff over on folks. And given that the average WisGOP seems to have the maturity and intellect of a snotty teenager these days, it was a good insight into how these guys roll. If the Wisconsin GOP can't tell the truth about jobs numbers or future business plans, you can bet it's nothing they think will help them at the polls in November. I guess we'll find out in tomorrow's Marquette Law School poll if the damage is already sinking in from these deceptions and swindles, or if that fallout happens later. Because the problem with constantly lying and deceiving is that at some point, you don't remember what you claimed or tried to pull over on someone, enough people call "BULLSHIT", and the whole thing unravels.