Are Walker's job numbers BS? Depends on who you ask

I knew there would be some kind of suspicious jobs release from the Department of Workforce Development when I saw Walker sending a media alert for some kind of news conference to discuss the jobs report. And sure enough, that was the case with 9,500 jobs added, but also an increase in unemployment by 0.2% to 7.6%. My immediate response (and the response of many with IQs over 80) was "BULLSHIT!" Remember, Walker's first DWD Secretary left under extremely fishy circumstances and was replaced by a guy whose previous jobs included clerking for Charles' Sykes' ex-wife and working for a law firm giving advice on getting around employment law. So let's see if these sketchy folks are conveniently fixing the last statewide employment report before the recalls.

My immediate hypothesis was that the guys at the DWD were messing with the seasonal adjustment from year-to-year, but a comparison of today's report and last year's doesn't show that. Not surprisingly, Wisconsin gets a huge increase in jobs in June regardless of the economy, just because tourism and construction season gets going, and kids get out of school for the Summer. The seasonal adjustment should take a lot of that increase out, and indeed it does. In 2010, there were 23,500 more jobs than in May, while that increase was 38,300 for this year (an increase of 14,800). Given that the seasonally adjusted totals were -8,200 in 2010 (largely due to the end of Census work) and +9,500 in 2011, this works.

But then look at where the increases are by category, and you get the real story:

Professional services- +4,900 2011 vs. 2010. But 3,100 are in "Admin. Support and Waste Management"- i.e. secretaries and janitors.

Leisure and Hospitality- +8,600 2011 vs. 2010- this category includes "Arts, Entertainment and Rec." and "Accomodation and Food Services." In other words, restaurants, hotels, lifeguards, and Summerfest. In addition to being an iffy number to begin with (you think tourism spots hired up a lot more this year with $3.75 gas?), these jobs are all gone in 2 months.

Other Services- +2,400 (no idea what this is- escorts?)

Government- +1,200- Even this is misleading because 2010 had a lot of lost Census jobs at the time (3,500). Among state and local governments, Scotty and co. dropped 13,700 jobs from May to June. Some of that is seasonality, but a lot of that is a result of the massive numbers of retirements of those employees, spurred on by Walker's union-bashing.

Add up those 4 categories, and you have a 17,100 employee increase in jobs over 2010. All the other types of jobs? 2011 LOSES 2,300 jobs vs. 2010, including 1,300 in education and health services (and the main layoffs have yet to be posted in these categories). And you know construction won't stay at +900 when the housing markets in Milwaukee and Madison continue to fall, staying around their multi-year lows.

So we;ve established that this "great job increase" is concentrated in low-wage, seasonal jobs with no sustainability. But did even THAT happen. The household survey in June 2011 showed that nearly HALF of the more than 50,000 people entering the work force last month ended up unemployed, and the seasonal adjustment there showed a LOSS OF 12,500 JOBS. So this explains the "increases 0.2% to 7.6%" part of the equation. So why the difference? Guess it literally depends on who you ask. As the Bureau of Labor Statistics' own site mentions:

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has two monthly surveys that measure employment levels and trends: the Current Population Survey (CPS), also known as the household survey, and the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey, also known as the payroll or establishment survey.

You can check out the complete explanation of how this works if you want to get your geek on, but the bottom line is that business owners said things were better, and actual people said things were worse. Now, which of those two might have more incentive to lie and manipulate what they do, especially this close to a recall election? Especially when it would mean the entire rest of the country had total job increases of 8,500.

So I don't have explicit proof, like I did with the Kaukauna lie. But I do have a good instinct in thinking we might see some nice "corrections" on the Wisconsin job front in the next few months, and it's not just because the full effect of the exodus of teachers and other public employees hits in full force between now and September. It's also because Wisconsin saw its new jobless claims increase by nearly 1,500 this week after going up another 1,600 the week before.

The more I look at this report, the more I think it'll add up to another Walker deception, because the alleged "job boom" sure doesn't seem to match reality. Stay tuned on this one.

Once again, govenment is not in the IPOD business

A very telling response from Gov. Dropout over the weekend, in another interview with out-of-state media. He claims his mistake was "thinking like a small business owner" and not working to gain political support for his policies. There are a number of items wrong with this statement.

1. Scotty has never been a small business owner. He's barely been a small business WORKER. He worked for all of 3 years part-to-full time in marketing and IBM sales, and that's only because Gwen Moore beat him the first time he ran for office at age 22. He was elected to the Legislature at age 26 and hasn't been off the public dole since. My college junior brother has more professional experience than governor Dropout...and is about as far along in his schooling. Any time you hear Walker talk about how things work in the business world, remember that it's all theory and things he's been fed by his contributors, because he doesn't have a damn clue about how corporations and small businesses really work.

2. Walker seems to indicate that his problem was in how it was sold, not in the content. This exchange is telling, for both its ridiculousness, and its paranoia.

"I don't think we built enough of a political case, so we let ... the national organizations come in and define the debate while we were busy just getting the job done," [Walker] said.

Walker has argued the state's agreements with public sector workers were unaffordable, and said his moves had helped prevent layoffs of middle-class workers.

Uhhh, the everyday appearances on AM 620 and co ARE you trying to build a case. That's what Sykes and Wagner and Belling are paid to do - uncritically spread your propaganda. But instead, real people got the hint, started to show up at the Capitol, and as more people read what kind of crap was in there, more realized that what you were trying to sell WAS BULLSHIT. It's why you tried to sneak this whole thing through in a week, the same way your lackeys at WisGOP are trying to slam through redistricting right now. And you're doing it because you have no legitimate case other than "greed and power". And about the "prevention of layoffs", I and others exploded that from the moment you tried to claim it (see point 3). The 30 retirements in my department alone in the last 2 weeks solidifies the absurdity of your statement, and shows that these savings could have been reached through simple attrition and concessions from the state employees union that were rejected by the State Senate after Walker demanded that they not be passed, and paid off Jeff Plale to vote against it. And now we know why that was done, don't we? When you have to lie and cover up your motives for doing something because reality is not on yur side, you always lose the people in the end.

3. As I've hit on before, government services are not the same as selling iPods or DVDs or disposable consumer products. You are dealing with things such as health care and education and natural resources and worker pay and transportation that are not optional matters in the 21st Century. These things are necessities and in any kind of non-Mad Max society, and you cannot leave them up to private markets to handle, because people will be left out, and end up destitute or dead. Selling these items off to for-profit businesses leads to exploitation, lower wages, a lower quality of life, and even more of a two-tier society that either ends with large-scale ghettos and hopelessness, or the French Revolution, with oligarchs ending up with their heads cut off.

And related to this, I couldn't help but note that Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana was bragging about a $1.18 billion surplus. Well, that's nice that Indiana made their numbers, but look at how they did. Cutting the hell out of schools and social services, and what does the average Hoosier get for it? The only state in the Midwest to have JOB LOSS for the last 12 months, and incomes and growth that are well below Wisconsin's in Mitch's time in office.

This is worth mentioning when you hear people claim Walker's done well to have allegedly removed the state's structural deficit, because even while the LFB may say the budget is balanced for the time being, (albeit with a whole lot of caveats that will only happen in Walker World and not the real one) you gotta ask, "For what result?" Lower-achieving schools? Less medical treatment for the sick, poor and elderly? The loss of any decent-paying job for people who don't have the right connections? 10% unemployment? Huge increases in poverty? If that's the case, 1. There's no way you can tell me that's remotely worth it, especially when Wisconsin was performing well above the national average economically when Walker took over and 2. You ain't going to have a balanced budget anyway because your revenues will collapse.

On Wall Street, "making your numbers" might get your stock to go up and get you a few bonuses from the board. But if it comes because of budget-cutting, lower wages and lower production, as it has the last 10 years, it is an unsustainable and immoral system. Unfortunately, that's exactly the type of system Scott Walker wants us to have in Wisconsin, where all the gains go to the top, and none to the more productive folks down below that made it happen. And the only way that trend will be stopped in Wisconsin if we make it stop these next 10 months.

STOP THE PROPAGANDA ON WALKER'S BUDGET BEING "HELPFUL" TO SCHOOL DISTRICTS!

Amazing to see Republicans cling to the lie that eliminating collective bargaining and reducing the take-home pay of public workers will make us better off and improve results. FOX 6 in Milwaukee is the latest to spread this deception with a story out today quoting Brown Deer Public Schools' Finance Manager Emily Koczela as saying the following:

"We all knew that our revenue cap was dropping in an unprecedented way, but we also all knew that we had unprecedented financial opportunity."

. Ah yes, mistreating employees and making them take home far less is an "unprecedented financial opportunity." Sounds like what CEOs say when they outsource work to Mexico or China, doesn't it?

Well, Em, I understand that you probably view it as a good thing from a money standpoint that you might not have to pay as much to teachers. I mean, after all, you only had a budget problem to solve when Scott Walker cut your school's aid by nearly $600,000. (Page 3) So he and his allies deserve ZERO credit for jacking around teacher's pay with concessions that many of their unions were willing to give. Last I checked, schools were a service business, where the product is quality citizens and workers of high skills and values. And if you hurt the quality of the delivery of this service (which you no doubt will do through paying people less and crowding their classrooms more), we ALL get hurt by what comes out of declining schools. And when you drop the pay of professionals like teachers, they tend to move out of your communities, which'll drive housing values down, because it's now an area that no one wants to teach in. People didn't choose to live in bland places like Brown Deer, Hartland, or Menomonee Falls for their scintillating nightlife, so if you take away one of the few advantages those places have...good luck surviving, suburb boys!

On top of the counterproductive strategy of disinvesting in schools and people, it's also an example of one of the more disgusting acts of Walker and his supportershave done (and God knows, there are many). Thatis, they treat education and people as commodities who should be determined by dollars and cents. There is very little discussion of how to use policy or budget to improve the actual product or people's outcomes The recent call from Walker and State Superintendent Tony Evers for certain school accountability measures is a rare exception, although even that is flawed by clinging to the failed "everyone will be above average" mentality of No Child Left Behind. The GOP thinks human services should come down to cold, calculating cost-benefit analyses, and that doesn't work when you have items based on human variables (like educational outcomes for students), or items that shouldn't be left to the private, for-profit market because they are needs which people cannot afford to do without (like health care).

But when you're owned by corporate oligarchs, as Walker and today's WisGOP are, you think in the entitled, sociopathic method that CEOs do. See on Wall Street, they only care if you hit your numbers, not how you got to those numbers. Now, you can choose to hit those numbers by creating something of value that people want, paying people a decent salary to encourage them to join your cmpany, and continue to grow and innovate. Or, you can lay people off, offshore to another country, and make a garbage product. Both will get your stock price up and allow your board members to be paid handsomely, but only 1 actually adds something to this society.

Walker and company have chosen the "garbage product" method, and even though the LFB claims the budget is balanced and right-wing propaganda is yapping that the GOP "made their numbers", that doesn't mean it came close to making us better off. And that budget won't be balanced in 6 months, by the way. Unemployment is starting to come back to Wiscon sin, as we saw in May and last week. Watch how the revenues dive and unemployment and other costs kick in, and a budget hole magically reopens.

Walker and co: "No MCTS, we want you to fail."

Yet another example of the perverse mentality that goes through today's WisGOP is illustrated in the Journal-Sentinel's rundown of the budget cuts that the Milwaukee County Transit System is facing. The spin the J-S puts on it is disgusting enough ("well, it could have been worse."), but then when you analyze the systematic destruction of this previously high-performing transit system, it's all the more sickening.

First of all, that $6.8 million budget cut should be put into context. It's not like the MCTS had been fully funded for the last 10 years and it's a temporary cutback. Scott Walker consistently cut routes and raised fares since taking over in Milwaukee in 2002. These drops in service and higher prices have predictably led to reduced ridership, due to the lack of reliability and affordability, to the point that recent fare increases over the last 3 years have not increased passenger revenues for the system.

Walker and co. continued with these failing ideas for 8 years instead of trying to invest and improve service performance and reliability. Why? To create a self-fulfilling prophecy he culd blurt out on his talk radio propaganda network, of course. "See, not enough people are taking the bus, so what's the point of spending money to improve the service? Let's do another pointless pose on property taxes and use it as a reason give away another break to my contributors." (oh wait, that second sentence is only what they say in private.)

So when Walker asked to cut 10% of MCTS funding along with the funding of every other transit tier, it was done with the knowledge that MCTS already had suffered major damage (By the way, there are 4 tiers that get state aid, Milwaukee, Madison, cities in Urbanized Areas of 50,000 or more, and Non-Urbanized areas). Then these cuts in direct aid were coupled with the knowledge that the federal government was also looking at cutting back on transit aid by 20%. So there goes that bullet for MCTS. And we've already mentioned that increasing fares really doesn't work in getting revenues, so what's MCTS to do if it wants to maintain anything resembling a normal transit system?

Ah, they could raise the money themselves. And they could do it by having all the FIBs who invade Summerfest and out-of-towners that hit Miller Park pay an extra 0.5% on everything they buy. The current 0.5% sales tax is slated to raise $64 million for the County this year, so figure the same for another 0.5% sales tax (I'm told by the LFB's lead sales tax analyst that there is no elasticity for sales tax vs. purchases, so I'll go with it), and you'd be able to cover the entire farebox and property tax part of the transit system (Page 19). Or you could cut the state taxpayer support of the system by $50 million and still take it almost entirely off of the property tax rolls. Win-win, right!

"Oh, but the voters would never go for an extra sales tax for transit." Except they already did, in the November 2008 general election with huge turnout. So why don't we have it? Because Walker still argued against it (I guess 52% of the voters wasn't enough of a mandate, unlike his 2010 52% "mandate" of a much smaller voter turnout), and Jim Doyle stupidly vetoed a budget item allowing it, making a silly argument in favor of regional transit instead of separating the MCTS issues from the KRM ones.

And the transit-hating suburbans who dominate WisGOP and as a result the Joint Finance Committee took this anti-tax thing one step further, led by Robin Vosser the Tosser, who whined about the horrible idea of having consumption taxes go toward helping people travel to work and leisure destinations. Walker allowed for RTAs to continue in his original budget, but you'll notice he didn't veto this abolition of RTAs, now did he? (Sometimes the actions you don't do speaks just as loudly, now don't it?) And he also didn't say "boo" about Vos and co's move to shift $160 million of general fund dollars into the Transportation Fund over the next 2 years, and only giving $5 million more to transit in the process (and only in the form of paratransit for city bus systems throughout the state, which is all of about 5% of those systems' paratransit costs- WOO-HOO!!!).

So now where does that leave the MCTS? Good luck raising property taxes when you have a $51 million budget deficit and an $8.3 million cut from the state in shared revenue (Page 49) ON TOP OF the $6.7 being cut to MCTS. It's almost like Walker and the WisGOPs set it up so that there is no other choice other than to drastically discontinue service and make it impossible for the County to provide a quality transit service.

Oh wait, that's EXACTLY the goal. You see, failed and ineffective public services prove "the government can't do anything right", and opens up the field for services to be sold off to private providers like Atlanta's Logisticare, who's getting $20 million a year for the next 3 years from the state to work with 3rd parties to get dialysis patients and other Medicaid recipients to their appointments. Nice gig if you can get it, and even better when it comes with less taxpayer accountability than a public transit system. And a great way to exploit the needy and make them ever more reliable on the corporate overlords, since they lose the choices in transportation and mobility that transit can offer them.

It's far from the only example of this administration stepping on the average person in order to funnel money to their contributors and friends, but it's one of the worst, as a second-class Milwaukee will go a long way toward having a second-class state. Then again, a declining Milwaukee seems to be what the 262 types prefer, since their goal in life appears to be winning a whole lot of "tallest midget" contests. Pathetic.

Follow.The.Damn.Money

Today reminded you of more reasons why it pays to pay to play in Walker's Wisconsin. Wisconsin and Southern Railroad exec William Gardner got sentenced to probation on two felony counts relating to illegal contributions and was fined $167,000. Gardner gave over $43,000 to Scott Walker in the last election cycle by funneling money through his employees and getting access to the guy who's now governor. And the payoff for those $43K in donations and $167K? How about Walker announcing over $15 million in grants and loans to WSOR ONE DAY before Gardner was arrested on the illegal contribtion charges. That's a return on investment of more than 7000% of the $210,000 put in, and Gardner doesn't even have to get his ass pounded in jail. Crime certainly does pay when you know the right people.

I'm also reminded of who's paying the bills under the Capitol big top because the recall election fundraising totals just came out for the the Quarter ending June 30. While the mainstream newspapers predictably covered the horse-race element and concentrated on total numbers without giving the context that Republican Senators had a 2 1/2 year head start on fundraising due to the fact that they were incumbents elected in '08 , they just-as-predictably failed to go inside the numbers to see where the contributions came from. Well, if you care about how our democracy is being bought and sold, where the funds are coming from is every bit as important as the amounts, if not more.

And in particular, let's go to the Fred Clark-Luther Olsen matchup. The big story that the media covers is the 2-to-1 advantage Clark had in fundraising in the last quarter, although to their credit, they also mention the PAC contributions from teacher's unions for Clark, and the (slightly larger) PAC contributions Olsen got Eli Lilly and other health insurance interests. Luther responded today to these numbers by playing the out-of-state agitator card and claiming Clark's support wasn't legitimate. However, if I were Luther, I really wouldn't go there.

Here's why. If you look at Olsen's report with the GAB, you might notice an interesting name on Page 10- Howard Fuller and Deborah McGriff, giving $700 on June 2, and another $350 from Fuller on April 19. Interesting, as Fuller is the former Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent and one of the key figures behind the voucher school movement. He's been actively campaigning for voucher schools for years, and gee, what a surprise, Olsen chairs the Assembly Education Committee and has a key role on the Joint Finance Committee. And voucher schools were massively increased in the last budget, including a feature that could expand it even further in future years. Especially interesting in that article is that the vouchers were expanded to Green Bay and other cities after Joint Finance Committee Republicans claimed there was a huge outpouring of support of voucher schools from the public.

Well, look at the date of that meeting (June 3) and compare it with Fuller's family's donation of $700 on June 2, $500 from "Friends of Joe Leean", (a former legislator and Cabinet member who hosted a Moonie-led, "abstinence-before marriage" rally 14 years ago at the Capitol), and a donation of $500 the next week from Bradley Foundation CEO (and voucher propagandist) Michael Grebe. Sorta gives you an idea what that "public support" was to cause that reversal on GB and elsewhere. LUTHER AND HIS BOYS GOT PAID!!!

Now check out the conduit donations starting around Page 20. Not a lot of Baraboos or Portages or Ripons or Clintonvilles in the report, but there are a whole lotta out-of-staters and Milwaukee-area cash. And there's a full 2 pages of hospital and health care payoffs- gee, you think they may like being able to dictate terms of coverage with fewer people on Badger Care and more cash being able to be kept in profit? You bet they do. Lastly, there's a nice $1,000 check from the Wisconsin Restaurant Association, who were a huge support group behind the GOP-led rollback in child labor laws. It really does pay to invest in a key legislator.

And Luther can also keep it in the family, as shown when One Wisconsin Now filed a complaint with the GAB noting that Olsen authored a bill allowing CESAs to run charter schools. The head of the CESA in Luther's neighborhood? Luther's wife Joan Wade, who met Luther when they were both in the State Assembly in the 1990s and early 2000s. CHA-CHING! (Of course, she was known as Joan Wade Spillner at the time and they were both married to other people at the time, just sayin')

The extra-special fun in seeing the Luther Olsens and other WisGOPs of the world complain about "outside interests groups" helping Democrats, they never mention the Koch PACs, WMCs, and Club for Growth payments that will be flooding the airwaves on their behalf. You know, the same groups that backed David Prosser and outspent pro-Kloppenburg ads by nearly a $1 million. And that $2.7 million sure paid off when Prosser and his other paid-off judges made their absurd decision last month on the collective bargaining bill, didn't it?

Deep Throat was more correct now than he was nearly 40 years ago- When you're dealing with politics in the 2010s, and especially Republican politics, it always comes down to following the money. The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign database is a great resource- use it.

Media picks up Kaukauna story (intentional ego trip by author)

In addition to the thanks for the great locals at Blogging Blue and Cognitive Dissidence, I also want to give special thanks to the Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent, who tweeted this site as part of his great post refuting Walker and right-wing media's lies regarding the "Kaukauna miracle." Needless to say, I feel quite shocked and honored that some holiday morning ramble and research got this far.

And there's plenty more where that came from, because there's issue after issue that's clearly showing the GOP game plan of FUBARing previously-quality programs and institutions, and then trying to sell it off to profiteers in order to "save it." THIS IS THE GOAL, and apparently it's gotta be us in the blogosphere that lead the way in getting the truth out, because our corporate media doesn't seem to want to be up to the task.

ADDED EDIT: I'm getting the Twitter attention from all the big-timers. Yesterday, the Brewers' Nyjer Morgan was asking where he could find good barbecue in Milwaukee after their win over Arizona. Around 5:45 I recommended Speed Queen on Fond du Lac Ave., and within 45 minutes there he is! I see ya T-Plush!

More great moments in fake outrage from Journal Communications

A couple of classic cases of Journal Communications synergy this weekend. In both cases, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel presented certain stories in a way that were sure to make them topics to be mentioned on Charles Sykes' show, stirring up the 262's fake outrage brigade, and thereby creating a feedback loop of a "big story" when one doesn't really exist.

1. On Sunday, the Journal Sentinel accused WEA Trust of keeping funds from school districts that were expected to receive a break on retiree health care, with a huge headline that made it sounds like WEA was screwing its recipients for having them leave the Trust for a better insurance deal. Sounds awful, right? Except when you actually read the details of the story, you realize WEA is the recipient of a federal grant, and that it then distributes the money to its members. (the emphases are mine)

The federal money, which the nonprofit WEA Trust applied for on behalf of individual school districts, is intended to offset high-cost medical claims for early retirees ages 55 and older who are not yet eligible for Medicare. WEA Trust is affiliated with the Wisconsin Education Association Council.

School officials argue that WEA Trust applied for the federal money during the 2010-'11 fiscal year, which ended Thursday, so the money should be credited to the same year. WEA Trust officials contend the money should be carried forward as 2011-'12 insurance premium credits.

So far, there's no definitive answer at the federal level - at least not one they can agree on.

School districts forfeited the money if they switched providers because federal rules dictate it must be disbursed to current plan participants, according to WEA Trust. The forfeited money will be divided among plan participants in school districts that remain with WEA Trust, company officials told the Journal Sentinel.

So when the school districts decide they don't want to be part of WEA Trust (which is cool, if they feel that's better for them), why should they be entitled to a grant that is held by WEA Trust. It sure sounds a lot like Scott Walker claiming he should be able to use high-speed rail funds for highways, doesn't it? Hey, the reason you got this credit was because WEA Trust was given it, so what right do you have to keep the money when you leave WEA Trust? That makes zero sense on its face.

And as Folkbum is wise to point out, "wait, there's even more!"

The federal assistance funds may be used to reduce the share of premiums paid by early retirees, or to reduce deductibles or co-pays. If the plan's total premiums go up year to year, the funds could be used to offset increases. However, the law specifies that the federal payments may not be used by employers as "general revenue."

But God Forbid the facts get lined up about this when you can be inflammatory, and write this story in such a way that it gins up whiners to leave 400+ comments. And what a surprise that the districts doing the most complaining in the article are Hartland and Pewaukee, two of the most baggerrific areas of Walkershaw County. I'm sure they don't have an extra axe to grind, do they?

2. You may have heard about the firefighter who encountered resistance from the Racine Fire Fighters' Union for wanting to put up a float in the city's 4th of July Parade that would serve as a memorial to the fire fighters who lost their lives in 9-11. Dan Bice dutifully allowed the fire fighter to get his story of isolation and persecution in the press, which allowed angry-man radio to go off to the races on how selfish the Racine firefighters union was for not wanting to be associated with this Christian man to showcase his patriotism.

One problem with this apoplexy. Mr. Gorniak chose not to associate with his firefighting brothers and sisters first.

Officials say it is highly unusual for Wisconsin firefighters to ask to go fair share. But Gorniak - who describes himself as a born-again Christian who supports conservative politicians, including Gov. Scott Walker - filed his resignation letter and became a fair-share worker in late March or early April. He said he made the move in response to the protests in Madison over Walker's collective-bargaining plan.

The move is so rare that union officials are still, months later, trying to figure out how much Gorniak should pay to cover negotiating costs. He was the first in his fire department to resign from the union.

Sure sounds a lot like those school district officials whining about not getting a part of the federal grant that was given to WEA Trust, while deciding to no longer be insured by WEA Trust. Birds of a feather, baby.

Typical Republican, the guy wants all the benefits that his union gave him (such as a good wage to support his family, quality equipment and working conditions, and an organization that gives voice to their concerns that they would as disorganized individuals), but doesn't want to be part of the team when it doesn't suit his own needs. He makes a conscious choice not to be part of the local union, and now he comes asking for their support and staffing for his float? REALLY? He should be glad the union head didn't ask him to go fuck himself and tell his non-unionized ass to start his own fire department and see how successful he'd be.

This guy is a self-centered clown, running to the media in an attempt to get his 15 minutes of fame and self-exposure by wrapping himself in the flag and exploiting the tragedy of 9-11 to make his own personal statement. (Amazing how this works with a lot of fundies, being the humble servants of God that they are.) And even if he doesn't realize that himself, the Vicki McKennas and Sykeses and Bellings of the world sure do, and it is disgusting that they use this as an excuse to bash a union of public workers. Especially when every fire fighter that paid the ultimate price on 9-11 was UNION, and was badly mistreated by "America's Mayor", Rudy Giuliani, in ways ranging from negligent communications equipment to lying about exposure to toxins in the clean up and aftermath of that mass murder.

We need to demand balance and honest reporting from the JS, and it is far past time to start putting the hurt on anyone who pays their bills. If Journal Communications is willing to throw the state down the drain in order to make a few extra bucks, they have lost their right to be a respected member of this state's community. Just because the vast majority of ancients who still read the JS fish wrap and listen to 620 AM are pissed-off right-wing shut-ins doesn't mean JRN's outlets should be allowed to lie and deceive people about what is going on in liberally-biased real world.