Do the Heartland Propaganda! Part Deux

Since Scott Walker and WisGOP are failing in convincing Wisconsinites of their dishonest and incorrect agenda, as evidenced by the right-leaning Marquette University Law School poll showing Walker and Tom Barrett dead even, and Walker below 50% against any opponent, does this give right-wing propagandists pause? HELL NO! They're going to try to double-down by spreading their hateful lies to other parts of the state!

As shown by this Heartland Institute story, Scott Walker front group CRG and other rightie business owners are trying to get radio stations in western and northern Wisconsin to carry the same propaganda that Milwaukee and Green Bay-area listeners get subjected to. This group recently convinced Eau Claire's WMEQ to carry talentless banshee Vicki McKenna (it doesn't say how, which sure makes you wonder what deals were struck). Remarkably, McKenna's own program director and a MacIver hack admit in the article that these shows are nothing more than WisGOP propaganda without any hint of acknowledging why this might be a problem in publically-owned airwaves.

Jerry Bott, director of programming and operations at WISN radio in Milwaukee, said it is no coincidence that in the 2010 gubernatorial election, Walker won by huge margins in southeast Wisconsin, and that, generally, the most conservative members of the state legislature come from the that part of the state

“Hosts on conservative talk radio affect public opinion by making a convincing case that conservative principles are powerful, proper, and effective said Bott. (Ed. note: It's "convincing" if you're a gullible moron. In the fact-based world, we call it a bunch of deceptions and lies) “This has an effect on public opinion in areas where conservative talk radio can be heard which, in turn, provides a fertile environment for conservatives seeking public office to be elected.”

In addition to Walker and Johnson, southeast Wisconsin is home to other notable conservative politicians, including Congressmen Paul Ryan (R) and Jim Sensenbrenner (R) and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus.

“Talk radio has had a very specific impact on who represents the people of southeast Wisconsin,” said John K. MacIver Institute for Public Policy President Brett Healy, a close observer of Wisconsin politics for more than 20 years. “If you can get some of these personalities on the local radio for the long term, this will be a great case study to see if it has a discernible effect on local elections and politics” in western and northern Wisconsin.

In other words, WisGOP isn't even trying to adjust it's plans and ideas to fit the realities on the ground. They're trying to convince talk radio listeners that their reality is different than....reality. It reminds you of another time we heard about the Heartland Institute, and that was when they were exposed for Operation Angry Badger, a right-wing funded attempt to make Act 10's salary cuts seem like a good thing for education and a general denigratation of Wisconsin public schools and their teachers to try to lead to more voucher school scams. Talk radio is a central part of strategies for campaigns like Operation Angry Badger, because they have one-sided hosts spread one-sided think tank propaganda that's disguised as "fact" and "studies", then give free air time to politicians to continue to spread the Big Lie. ("Hi, this is Scott Walker!")

And if you listen to enough of this garbage, you might become convinced that objective facts are not "reality." A great example comes from the cross-tabs in the Marquette Law poll. As we know, Wisconsin has lost the most jobs of any state in the nation over the last 12 months, nearly 24,000 in all. But check out the responses to this question from the Marquette poll, and ask yourself "Which one of these is not like the other?"

For the state as a whole, are there more jobs, fewer jobs, or are they about the same?
Very liberal- 9.6% More, 66.1% Fewer, 24.3% About the Same
Somewhat liberal- 9.7% More, 57.1% Fewer, 31.4% About the Same
Moderate- 20.7% More, 41.2% Fewer, 35.6% About the Same
Somewhat cons.- 21.8% More, 27.1% Fewer, 45.7% About the Same
Very conservative- 46.6% More, 15.6% Fewer, 33.1% About the Same

Hmm, think the very conservative folks who get that answer wrong BY A FACTOR OF 3 TO 1 might get their "facts" from people like Sykes, Belling, and McKenna. You bet they do. It goes right with the study which showed Fox News watchers knew less about current events than people who didn't watch news at all. And now you know why this organization made up of a Scott Walker front group and mediocre, selfish business owners want hate radio to be spread to other parts of the state, because their only chance of survival is to have a bunch of misinformed zombies take over the voting booths, and talk radio is the medium that works best to reach these weak-minded dopes.

And it's why we in the fact-based world must stay loud and aggressive, and counter every one of the lies propaganda outlets with a strong defense of reality. Walker's falling poll ratings in the face of his campaign blowing $21 million in expenses shows that people who have a clue see through Gov. Dropout and his failed policies. Now we have to stop innocent others from being sucked in, and make sure our voice is part of this state's conversation.

Milwaukee's OK, it's rural Wisconsin really feeling the job losses

It seems that the Walker Administration (and their mouthpieces at places like WMC) is trying out a theme of "Milwaukee is screwed up under Tom Barrett and therefore you shouldn't vote for Barrett." This is a silly argument for 2 reasons.

The first is shown in today's BLS report on local area unemployment rates and jobs. Wisconsin's info for metro areas is on Page 21, and when you look at it, it shows that the Milwaukee area (ID'd as Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington Counties) may have lost jobs in the last 12 months, but at a slower rate than the rest of the state did.

Job change, Milwaukee vs. Wisconsin March 2011- March 2012(seasonally unadjusted)
Milwaukee area- -4,300, -0.54%
Rest of Wisc.-25,700, -1.35%

So Milwaukee actually is beating the sad trend that exists in the rest of Fitzwalkerstan, and I could easily argue that those Milwaukee job losses are more the result of Walker over Barrett or the suburbs. Blaming Barrett for the Milwaukee area's losses in the last year would be like blaming Jim Doyle for losing jobs during Bush's Great Recession (oh wait, that is what the WisGOPs try to do...and they're equally full of crap for the Doyle complaints).

And the second reason is because Scott Walker hasn't given a damn about this state's largest city for at least a decade, as Capper runs down in this excellent post. "Transform Wisconsin" is a gimmick is the mark of a desperate man who's now falling behind in the polls because of his failed policies, and is a typical GOP move of screwing up something, and then claiming that you're the only one that can fix the mess you caused. Sorry, I'd rather have people in charge who don't screw it up in the first place.

Those BLS figures also show another trend when it comes to Wisconsin jobs- that rural Wisconsin has been devastated by Walker and the WisGOPs. Rural areas the ones often facing some of the worst public school cutbacks, as they are often the only provider of education around and have much fewer resources to spread the cuts over, and they are the ones who are especially devastated when local plants shut down (like the Schield plant and its 556 jobs in Mosinee or the recently-closed Wausau paper plant in Brokaw) , as that could be the main employer in the town with nothing else to replace it. When you break down the job numbers in Wisconsin, you can see the devastation outside of Wisconsin's urban areas, as well as Walker's targeted attack on state employees in Madison.

Job change, March 2011-March 2012
Milwaukee area -4,300, -0.54%
Madison area -4,600, -1.34%
Other state urban +3,600, +0.44%
Rural areas -24,700 -3.35%

That's right, rural Wisconsin is over 80% of the state's 30,000 unadjusted job loss over the last 12 months, and 1 out of every 30 jobs that existed a year ago are now gone from these areas. So while lots of places in Wisconsin are hurting, none are hurting more than the small towns and villages that help make this state the special place we know it to be.

Here's the question. Many rural areas of Wisconsin switched strongly to Walker and the GOP in the 2010 elections after going for Obama in 2008. Now that they've seen the effects of Walker's policies hit them as hard as any part of the state over the last 16 months, are they going to stick with Walker on June 5? I wouldn't bet on it.

Donate to WisGOP, get the Gov to show up to your expansion

I saw a timid jobs expansion story crawl across the ticker today, but it piqued my interest. It related to a Waukesha-based business called Spancrete, and they were announcing the planned (i.e., hasn't happened yet) addition of 30 jobs and the callback of employees they had previously laid off. Particularly when Spancrete's CEO made comments about the job market improving, it made my BS detector fire, and I decided to do some digging.

So I dialed up the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign's campaign finance database, and put in Spancrete's name. What followed was 260 donations over the last 20 years, with the numbers increasing in recent times, with plenty of mentions of the Nagy family of Hartland, and CEO Alan Antoniewicz, who is quoted in the job expansion article.

In all, Spancrete has given over $93,000 over the years, all to Republicans, including over $35,000 in 2010 and 2011. Nearly $10,000 of those dollars went to Walker in that time period, and $22,000 on Sept. 7, 2010 to Brett Davis, who was running for Lieutenant Governor at the time and currently has a spot in Walker's DHS.

The Davis connection is notable, because the complaint against accused Walkergate criminal Kelly Rindfleisch indicates that Rindfleisch's main job was to help run the campaign of....Brett Davis. And a huge bundling of campaign dollars on the same day doesn't happen without coincidence. So no wonder Walker came sprinting to Spancrete to try to spin some sort of "jobs are coming back" meme- there's been a lot of kickbacks...ERRR...relationships between the 2 sides.

But Scotty's not a monogamous man on this subject. There's plenty of other Friends of Walker that Scotty has graced with his presence in the last year.

1. Walker showed up at an event last November when generator-maker Generac announced a potential expansion of 400 jobs. It was also nice of him to say hello to Generac founder Robert Kern and his wife Patricia, who gave Walker a cool $200,000 on April 23, and have given $124,000 to Republicans since 1997.

2. Walker appeared in Hudson last June to announce that ULine manufacturing was moving its distribution center and 150 jobs from Minnesota across the St. Croix River. The move came a few years after ULine received millions in TIF tax breaks to move a location across the Illinois line in Pleasant Prairie, and CEO Richard Uihlein showered Walker with his appreciation in the form of $132,000 in the last 2 years, including $100,000 the weekend that recall petitions were filed against Scotty, and $25,000 more in March 2012.

Uihlein has also spread around his wealth to plenty of other Wisconsin Republicans through the years, including thousand to legislative candidates and $10,000 to the dishonest Supreme Court campaign of Michael Gableman. Interestingly, despite his huge interest in WisGOP causes, Uihlein won't be able to vote for Walker on June 5, because he has listed his residence as being in Lake Forest, Illinois the last 5+ years.

3. Also in Western Wisconsin, Polaris announced last month that it was receiving $595,000 in state tax credits in return for promising to add 89 jobs in the next three years at a plant in Osceola. The move was especially interesting as Polaris shut down the Osceola plant and took 500 jobs with it in 2010. 6 weeks prior to those tax credits being handed out, Polaris CEO Scott Wine gave Walker $5,000, and Polaris Production Director and President Davis Payne also chipped in to Walker's campaign in the last few months. Sure seems to be interesting timing, and much like Walker's buddy Richard Uihlein, neither Wine nor Payne can vote for Walker either, as Wine is from Minnesota and Payne is from Texas.

And I'm just scratching the surface here. Three months ago, I was noting WEDC's desperation in giving away tax credits just so they can say Walker's policies added something to our economy. If anything, this trend has gotten more blatant as the recall election nears and Wisconsin stays dead last when it comes to jobs since Walker took over. So just for fun, I recommend taking a look at where Walker shows up for the next jobs announcement or tax credit giveaway, then cross-check it with the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign's database. I bet you'll be able to find a whole lot of "coincidences" pop up.

Double quotable for Milwaukee

Milwaukee Ald. Bob Bauman on Gov. Walker's big press conference claiming $100 million in loans available to "Transform Milwaukee"

“It’s totally phony. WHEDA already does all of those things. If they really want to do something (for Milwaukee) they should restore the transit cuts, restore the education cuts, restore the cuts to shared revenue and stop running Talgo out of town, which is doing business in the 30th Street Industrial Corridor. Just put us back to where we were before. Leave us alone. Then we would be happy.”

And Bauman is no buddy of Tom Barrett's by any stretch of the imagination. I hear what you're saying, Bobby. I hear you.

And speaking of transforming Milwaukee? Remember when Milwaukee was one of the most competitive airports in the U.S. for price and flights for a city of its size. Not anymore, and Frontier's cutting of direct flights to 6 places and its layoff of 125 employees is the next shot to the gut of Mitchell Field.

The move will bring to about 36 the number of employees the airline will have at Milwaukee's Mitchell International Airport, said Lindsey Carpenter, a Frontier spokeswoman. The airline has other employees here who are part of Milwaukee-based flight crews that fly out of other cities, she said.

The only direct flights Frontier will continue to fly out of Milwaukee will be to Denver, Orlando, Washington, D.C. and Rhinelander, Carpenter confirmed. Non-stop service will be cut to New York LaGuardia, Columbus, Indianapolis, Nashville, Omaha and Pittsburgh, she said.

The regional jets that were used on many of those routes will be put into service in other markets where there are "better options" for partner agreements, Carpenter said.

Huh, you mean when Scott Walker allowed of AirTran to expand their share at Mitchell Field in exchange for "sponsoring" his campaign trip bike ride throughout Wisconsin has after-effects that hurt Milwuakee flyers long-term? Who'd a thunk it?

Oh wait, I did. And as an extra bonus, you get to see Walkergate criminal Tim Russell in his previous gig, rocking an AirTran jacket.

Say this about our economic performance- it's consistent

Wanted to follow up on last week's report of the Philly Fed's read on how the states' economies are doing, which showed Wisconsin trailing every state in the Midwest and the U.S. economy as a whole over the last 3 months, and put it together with Friday's Leading Index report, which measures the next 6 months. You'll find that the trend looks quite familiar.

Yep, Wisconsin's the standout in the Midwest again, as the only state in the light green with all the other states predicted to grow twice as fast as Wisconsin for the next 6 months. The report says Wisconsin's economy is slated to remain tepid, with only 1.14% growth projected between now and September, below the U.S. rate of 1.71%, and nearly cut in half from the amounts that the Walker Administration was bragging about 6 weeks ago. In fact, when you put the leading index numbers together with what's happened in the 14 months of the Walker Administration, Wisconsin's will fall even further behind our neighbors in the coming months.

Projected total growth, Jan 2011- Sept. 2012
Mich 9.11%
Ohio 8.92%
Ind. 7.53%
Ill. 6.61%
Iowa 5.88%
Minn 5.44%
U.S. 5.16%
Wis. 1.75%

And none of the nearly $9 million of out-of-state money sent to Scott Walker in the last 4 months changes that reality (h/t One Wisconsin Now for the map). Walker's economic failure has already set this state back a far ways from our neighbors, and if it isn't ended now, the damage will become too much to make up.

Milwaukee's property woes go directly to Walker

In recent weeks, Wisconsin cities, villages and towns have been releasing their property assessment figures, and most of the news hasn't been good if you're looking to sell your house. Milwaukee area home values tanked in 2011, with the average home assessment down over 13% in the City and median home sales prices also down 7.2% in Ozaukee County and 5.6% in Waukesha County. In the City of Madison, the average home value went down more than 3 percent, and median home sales prices were down 6.4% statewide.

Well why did this happen? The first obvious answer is Scott Walker's budget and Act 10 measures helped lead to Wisconsin having the most job losses in the U.S. by far. Certainly that plays a big role, but there are other reasons as well, particularly when you look at Milwaukee's situation.

Walker's budget singled out the City of Milwaukee for damage. Walker cut state shared revenue to the City of Milwaukee by more than $10.3 million in 2011, and cut street aids to Milwaukee by over $2.5 million. Walker also cut $6.8 million out of the Milwaukee County Transit System, and then reduced the ability to offset these cuts by limiting the ability of the City to raise that revenue with strict limits on property taxes (only allowing increases in tax levies if a community did sprawl-related new construction- a hard task in a city where most parcels are already developed). Remember, the City of Milwaukee by law cannot raise a sales tax or income tax, meaning it has to turn to state aids and property taxes as two of its main source of revenues, so Walker was intentionally harming the city with these moves.

Walker then compounded those cuts further by exempting the largest group of Milwaukee City employees from having to be subject to Act 10 concession - police and fire department employees. In addition to this being a politically-motivated decision based entirely on those groups endorsing Walker in the 2010 Governor's race against Tom Barrett, it also negated Walker's claim that using Act 10's "tools" would make up for these cuts in shared revenue. As Barrett accurately pointed out in as Act 10 was being debated Act 10 "pits general City of Milwaukee employees against the police and fire unions," because it was the general employees that would have to shoulder ALL cuts if police and fire were not paying their share of the sacrifice. And Barrett was proven correct that it was a major Act 10 flaw, as the judge that struck down part of the law last month said:

The fact that none of the public employee unions falling into the general category endorsed Walker in the 2010 election and that all of the unions that endorsed Walker fall within the public safety category certainly suggests that unions representing general employees have different viewpoints than those of the unions representing public safety employees. Moreover, Supreme Court jurisprudence and the evidence of record strongly suggests that the exemption of those unions from Act 10’s prohibition on automatic dues deductions enhances the ability of unions representing public safety employees to continue to support this Governor and his party.

So Walker's policies tied the hands of Mayor Barrett in trying to deal these cuts, but it wasn't just city services that were put on the chopping block by Walker's budget. Milwaukee Public Schools were cut by $47 million for this school year, and only $8.5 million was restored to MPS for next year. Not surprisingly, MPS can't keep up services for its 79,000+ students with that kind of a cut, and they recently announced plans to shutter 6 buildings and cut 400 positions overall, including 234 teaching positions. MPS' budget is independent of the City of Milwaukee's, which made the Walker's campaigns attempts to blame Barrett for MPS' closings all the more ridiculous, as Barrett couldn't do anything about it if he wanted to. It also shows that Walker is unfit for office if he doesn't understand this difference, or that his campaign cynically thinks the voters are too stupid to know the difference. Either is a recallable offense in itself.

Barrett points out in the Journal-Sentinel article on declining home values that the City of Milwaukee continues to have large numbers of foreclosures, and City Assessor Mary Reavey, Alderman Michael Murphy and Greater Milwaukee Realtors head Mike Ruzicka concur.

Ruzicka, Reavey and Ald. Michael Murphy, chairman of the Common Council's Finance & Personnel Committee, agreed with Barrett about the impact of foreclosures on residential values.

As of February, banks owned 1,634 foreclosed properties, the city owned another 727, and 6,066 more were in the foreclosure process, city figures show.

"People don't realize the foreclosure crisis is not just a one-time event," Murphy said. "It continues to drag on."

And not surprisingly, foreclosures lead to the values of occupied homes to drop, because the competition for similar homes comes cheaper (sorry, Rick Santelli, it's true). So an obvious answer to boost up property values is to reduce the amount of foreclosures by giving aid to people to keep them in their homes, if possible.

Except that Walker and Attorney General J-B Van Hollen made that a lot tougher a couple of months ago when they stole $25 million intended to go to foreclosure mitigation, and instead used it to reduce the Walker-induced budget deficit. So with nothing to stop the run on foreclosures, property values continued to drop in Milwaukee.

Between the cuts to schools, city aids, transit and foreclosure aid, Scott Walker has chosen to remove tens of millions of dollars from the City of Milwaukee's economy that could have helped turn things around in the state's largest economic engine. And despite what Walker's campaign tries to say, there was very few options Tom Barrett had that could limit the damage in the face of these moves - in fact, I'd argue that Barrett deserves credit for limiting property tax increases and keeping services afloat in the last 2 years in the face of these headwinds. Keep it in mind when you start seeing ads complaining about Tom Barrett's record in Milwaukee, and trying to pawn off the city's dropping property values onto Barrett instead of the true culprit in the decline- Scott Walker's anti-Milwaukee policies.

And it's not just in Milwaukee where people are seeing the damage, as all throughout our state, property values are falling and tax rates rising as a result of the pro-corporate, anti-services Age of Fitzwalkerstan. Somehow, I'm thinking most people don't appreciate that the $20 they may have saved in property taxes also came with a drop of thousands of dollars in their home. And unless you step up on June 5, that cycle of lower home values and lower jobs is not going to break.

Drafting a few notes and heading south

Getting ready to head out and watch the NFL draft the best way I know how. Drinking with friends in a bar and ripping the picks. I'm just looking for the Pack to get some kind of defensive impact guy, either a rush end to help Claymaker, or even a good safety to replace Nick Collins (Charlie Peprah and what they have now isn't going to cut it in the 2012 NFL). Also intersted in seeing if Konz or Zeitler (or both) go somewhere tonight, or if it's tomorrow.

Then it's off to the road to St. Louis for family items this weekend, and maybe see if the Brewers can get themselves on track and make up some ground, so that means a lot less blogging for the next 3 days. With my luck, that means John Doe breaks (or the Philly Fed survey shows Wisconsin goes into the red for the next 6 months), but I'll be back by the end of the weekend, so all 5 of you who regularly read can get your latest installment of "As Fitzwalkerstan Turns and Burns."

See ya on the other side, everybody.