My thoughts on Oak Creek (Pt. 2)- the role of hate media and enabling politicians

But what leads someone to go after a Sikh? This is my last point, and where the real conversation has to take place. 9/11 happened over a decade ago, and Sikhs aren't even Muslim, but apparently this doesn't matter to the type of trailer trash that would attack these innocent people. Why do they decide to go after them? Probably because they're fed a steady diet of hate radio and hate TV that continues to portray brown-skinned people as a dangerous enemy. And politicians feed off of that hate to get support and their faces on TV.

Remember last month when Michelle (Batshit) Bachmann and 3 other GOP reps asked to investigate the Muslim Brotherhood and smeared State Department official Huma Abedin? And Mitt Romney refused to condemn Bachmann's statements last Friday, saying "I'm not going to tell other people what things to talk about." Why not Mittens? Do ya need the bigot vote that badly? Yes he does, and so do a lot of politicians, so they let the dog whistles continues, and I got a bad feeling they came in loud and clear to the guy who did the shooting in Oak Creek today.

A lot of Wisconsin radio stations make a lot of cash off of race-baiting and other types of hate. May I remind you of Mark Belling complaining about "wetbacks" voting or that a Congressional debate couldn't be held in (mostly black) north side Milwaukee because they'd be "intimidated" thinking they might be "shot in the head." How about Charles Sykes' false claims of inner-city voter fraud, or Vicki McKenna calling Madison fire fighters "filthy, rotten scoundrels." AM stations across Wisconsin feature 9 hours of this type of hate every day, where several different groups of "others" are denigrated with the intent of agitating the listeners and making them take action against these groups.

A frequent guest on all of these shows is Scott Walker, who used that radio-amplified resentment of public employees and "welfare-sucking minorities" to his advantgae in the recall election, along with playing on the fear of the NRA gun nuts. Today, he gave the following statement on the Oak Creek temple shooting.

"While the situation in Oak Creek continues to develop rapidly, we are working with the FBI and local law enforcement. I became aware of the situation late this morning and continue to receive updated briefings.

"Our hearts go out to the victims and their families, as we all struggle to comprehend the evil that begets this terrible violence.

"At the same time, we are filled with gratitude for our first responders, who show bravery and selflessness as they put aside their own safety to protect our neighbors and friends.

"Tonette and I ask everyone to join us in praying for the victims and their families, praying for the safety of our law enforcement and first responder professionals and praying for strength and healing for this entire community and our state."

It's a nice statement overall, fitting of a chief executive. However, I can't ignore the irony of Walker giving "gratitude" to first responders when he has made it tougher to fund these positions due to cuts in shared revenue and collective bargaining. I also note that Scotty "struggles to comprehend the evil that begets this terrible violence." REALLY? Walker and his WisGOP colleagues clearly gave a wink and a nod to Char-LIE and Icki and Belling and the rest of the hate brigade to denigrate anyone that dared to confront this administration lies and failed policies. He also says nothing to go against these programs' party lines of race-baiting and scapegoating, and instead is more than glad to give them interviews whenever he feels he needs to get his message out. You want me to believe that you'll do something to confront the evil that begets this violence, Governor? How about telling Icki and Char-LIE and Wagner and Belling and Bader to tone down the hate and the dog whistles, and don't go on their shows until they show that they have done so. Does anyone think Walker has the true strength to actually stand up to the people who give him the time to spread the propaganda he needs in order to have his failing administration stay afloat? Of course not.

This inability to stand up to the hate extends to the owners of the radio stations these cynical d-bag hosts are on. I called out the corporate acceptance of this degrading programming last March, and we need hammer these guys even more today.

Instead of working for more responsible programming and improving the discourse on the publically-owned airwaves, these corporates are laughing all the way to the bank at the rubes who drive up ratings because of their need for a scapegoat. And they never make their hosts pay a price for the destructive environment they cause with their seditious broadcasts.

THAT HAS TO END RIGHT NOW. We need to demand that Clear Channel, JournalComm, Midwest Communications, and other acceptors of hate to face the consequences if they do not shape up their product, and confront and expose any politician who chooses to scapegoat and race-bait their way into a November election.

As they said in Roadhouse, "Be nice, till it's time not to be nice." Well being nice hasn't stopped the destructive road this state and this country is on, so I think it's time not to be nice, and not to be tolerant of those who are hateful and intolerant. There aren't "both sides of the story" when it comes to this type of fear and negativity - and the media is every bit as complicit as the people performing the hateful acts. Make these degraders pay in the pocketbook, in the voting booth, and in the court of public opinion.

My thoughts on Oak Creek (Pt. 1)- the Good and the Guns"

When I heard the news about the POS who shot up the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek and killed at least 6 people today before he was taken out by the cops, my thoughts weren't sad. They were angry.

Now fortunately I've had a few hours to cool off, through drinks at the Union with my Dad, Grandmother and fiancee, and by heading over to Capitol with about 50-75 others to give our thoughts and show our support (a small gesture, to be sure, but it's a start). But now that I'm back home, it's time to look at this incident, and yes, I am going to GO THERE. Some may say it is too soon to look at action and point the finger at causes, but we do this all the time, and we never seem to keep the next horrific mass shooting and hate crime from happening. So we have to talk about it now.

The first point I'll make is a positive one. Great work by the Oak Creek police and first responders on the scene. It seems that they avoided further atrocities and a possible hostage standoff that would have made this awful situation so much worse. Maybe we should give a little more respect to public employees like these guys who lay it on the line in thankless situations like this all the time. Whatcha say, Guv? Are these guys "lazy thugs" there, Scotty, doing the job that they did on a Sunday morning?

I also appreciate the immediate classification of this as "domestic terrorism, because it is. BS'ing about it and claiming it's a random 6-person killing does not get to the heart of what this bastard has done, and why it was done, and truthfully calling it "terrorism," even when it's a middle-aged white guy doing it, allows us a better chance to get to root of the problem, and make it more likely it doesn't happen again.

Now, the bad stuff. This continues the awful pattern of America's easy availability of guns leading to disasters. We always have this talk come up whenever a Gabby Giffords incident happens or the guy in Colorado shoots up a theatre, but it never gets further than that, especially when the NRA and the rest of the gun lobby starts threatening politicians with a lack of support or major opposition if they dare to restrict who can get a gun. Well, NO MORE. We need to find out how this wack-a-doodle got his gun, and any other stuff that was stashed in his old place in Cudahy (as of now, the neighborhood is being evacuated).

I am tired of people saying that the 2nd Amendment means that anyone and their dog should be allowed to have a gun. With that right to bear arms comes great responsibility, and it's pretty evident that some people can't handle that responsibility. If someone has a history of mental illness or violence or instability, maybe they should be able to have a weapon of potential mass destruction? Is that a really hard compromise to make, gun-nuts? Look, if you want a gun in your house or other places, and you haven't broken laws and pass a basic competency test, then you can have all the freaking guns you want.

But God forbid that someone ask for one day of training before getting the right to carry. Attorney General J.B Van Hollen wanted to put a rule in requiring 4 hours of training as part of the state's Walker/WisGOP-approved concealed carry law. But then the gun lobby spoke up, and Wisconsin legislators caved to the NRA and company, throwing out the 4-hour requirement last November. Oh, and do you think I've forgotten pro-Walker commercials the NRA ran during the recall election? You know, like this one?



The necks better pray this guy didn't get his weapons mail-order or over-the-counter last week.

Another thing I am tired of is people claiming targeted mass shootings are isolated incidents. Just three days prior to the Oak Creek shooting, a man in Mlwaukee walked into his work supervisor's office, shot his boss, and then killed himself. You had the Aurora theatre shooting just last month, the Giffords shooting in January 2011, and others in the last 5 years including the Virginia Tech killings, a guy killing 13 in a Hmong community Center, and Major Hassan at Ford Hood. Note how a lot of these follow a pattern of "one guy, crowded room?" Let's stop thinking these things only "just happen" and blow them off, and let's start dealing with the violent society we have built. One where someone feels a gun is their only way to solve their problems, and get even with the world.

It also isn't the first time someone went after a Sikh. The head of the Sikh-American Defense and Education Fund noted several anti-Sikh crimes in America in the last 18 months, including 2 being murdered in California, death threats to a Virginia family, aggravated assaults, and vandalism to a temple. 92 members of U.S. Congress sent a note to the Department of Justice this April asking to collect information into crimes against American Sikhs, and it is noteworthy that the FBI is taking an active role in the investigation in the Oak Creek killings.

So that's the first round of thoughts I have- your #wiunion thug law enforcement are the heroes of this story, and something we should be proud of as Wisconsinites on this dark day. But the availability of guns must be discussed (and this has been a failure of both Obama and the Republicans), and this country needs to have an honest conversation that goes into our violent culture, and how we can truly make this a more perfect union. Because it sure doesn't feel like it right now, with a loud minority controlling an issue that seems to be out of step with those of us in the common sense and decency world.

They wanted Fitzwalkerstan- they got it

There were probably more than a few people in Wisconsin that voted for Scott Walker on June 5 because they believed that he truly cared about their community and that his policies would (somehow) make things better off for them. And a lot of these people that fell for that line lived in rural Wisconsin and exurban Milwaukee. Well check out some recent headlines in Walker Country, and then wonder what those people must be thinking today.

1. There was a pipeline spill in the Town of Jackson on July 17 that has resulted in nearly 55,000 gallons of gasoline going into the ground in Washington County, and resulting in resulting in numerous wells being contaminated and homes not being able to use tap water, or in worse cases, no water at all. The worst part of this story is that it took over 2 weeks for the Wisconsin DNR and West Shore Pipeline Company to give the advisories and take more aggressive action, leaving hundreds of homes at risk.

But why should the people in the Town of Jackson be surprised by the DNR's slow reaction to this situation. Keep in mind what was said when Scott Walker appointed former State Sen. (and developer) Cathy Stepp as DNR Secretary less than 2 years ago.

In an interview with the Wisconsin State Journal...Walker said he chose Stepp to lead the natural resource agency because her experience as both a business owner and a former member of the Natural Resources Board will allow her to balance environmental protection with economic development.

"I wanted someone with a chamber-of-commerce mentality," Walker said.

A longtime critic of the agency she will now oversee, Stepp served on a legislative committee that toured the state seeking comment and criticism about the DNR. And in a post on a conservative blog last year, Stepp said the people who work at the DNR tend to be "anti-development, anti-transportation, and pro-garter snakes, karner blue butterflies, etc." In the same post, she called agency employees "unelected bureaucrats" who tend to "come up with some pretty outrageous stuff that those of us in the real world have to contend with."

I dunno, but I'd say that not being able to use your well water in your own home is pretty "real world", and not exactly something that'll be advertised in the greater Jackson/ Washington County Chamber of Commerce, now is it? But when you have clueless hacks hired to head up agencies and give the benefit of the doubt to businesses to handle problems, it's not surprising that things like this happen.

Oh, and the Town of Jackson's voting results on June 5? Walker 82.8%, Barrett 16.9% Guess they were just fine with this type of lax enforcement of rules then. Wonder if they feel that way now.

2. And another hugely pro-Walker area already knew about the "open for business" DNR, with the continuing fiasco from Herr Environmental and the DNR's cover-up of their destructive waste-management practices. Remember that one from May, where former 262-area GOP Representative (and recipient of Herr donations) Scott Gunderson let Herr off with a minor fine for dumping 3 times the permitted amount of human waste near Oconomowoc-area homes. This incident is also infamous for the interference of State Rep. Joel Kleefisch, who urged the DNR to let his buddies at Herr off the hook.

At a second meeting, on Dec. 20, Kleefisch — who also received $100 in campaign donations from Herr and whose wife Rebecca received $2,250 from the Herr family during her campaign for lieutenant governor — challenged Gunderson to reconsider the citations the DNR was weighing against Herr.

“In the age of the DNR/Wisconsin Governor being pro-business, why is the DNR giving Herr 5 citations and why can’t 2 or 3 be taken away as a show of good faith?” Joel Kleefisch asked, according to Bolha’s notes of the meeting. He also reportedly asked that the fine be reduced. Kleefisch didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Bolha also noted Kleefisch asked Gunderson to write the district attorneys involved suggesting the DNR would be in favor of even lower fines.

Gunderson, Bolha reported, “did not seem enthusiastic about writing a letter” but emphasized the agency “had done everything the DNR could to keep the referral from going to the DOJ where the civil forfeitures could have reached $20,000 to $40,000.”

Other shoes have dropped in this case since that story broke 3 months ago, as the DNR told homeowners in the area they had to pay for their own well tests, instead of making Herr pay for their own negligence. And in the last 2 weeks, State Rep. candidate Scott Michalak reported that residents in the Town of Concord received letters telling them that drinking water in the Town of Concord area was contaminated with E. Coli., which comes from...human waste.

So with that hanging over them, what was the Town of Concord's voting record on June 5? Walker 71.3%, Barrett 28.4%. The adjoining Town of Oconomowoc voted much the same way, 75.8%-23.8% and 75.2%-23.9% for Scott Fitzgerald over Lori Compas. This area was in favor as much as anywhere in the state in agreeing to continue to put business-first hacks like Cathy Stepp and Scott Gunderson in charge of these organizations, so E.coli in their drinking water is the result.

3. The Shawano School District announced last week that their school property tax levy was slated to go up more than 12%, and the district's business manager says property taxes now top state aid as the Number 1 revenue source for Shawano Schools. This is despite more than $250,000 in SPENDING CUTS in its overall budget, and is a direct result of Walker's cuts in school aid passing the buck to the local districts and local property taxes. As mentioned before, numerous Wisconsin districts learned of major school aid cuts from the state in late June, and now have to make up the differences in budget cuts and higher property taxes.

Rural and small-town Wisconsin districts like Shawano's in particular heavily rely on school aid from the state, and don't have a lot of property value to tax to recover from those state reductions. Shawano is only one of many that will be feeling the crunch from Walker's decision to funds roads and give tax breaks to corporations over investing in schools and relieving pressure from local communities.

So how did Shawano County vote on June 5 after Walker's budget had taken effect? Walker 66.1%-Barrett 33.3%

Apparently, this is what residents in that community favored, so I don't expect them to cry over the extra property taxes they're now going to be paying to keep their schools running. But you know they will. And yes, there is a bit of schadenfreude from me, because usually it's us in the thinking world that have to pay for the voting errors of these self-centered types in the sticks.

The real question that I have from these awful situations in Washington County, Oconomowoc and Shawano is "WILL YOU LEARN SOMETHING FROM THIS?" I feel bad that these communities have to be hurt in order for them to have a chance to see that the people they vote for don't care and don't have their best interests in mind. But apparently that's the wake-up call many people in these communities are going to need (though I have no doubt many of them won't have the guts to hear the call, and will vote R out of racism or stupidity or lazy habit).

July jobs thoughts

Big news on Friday was the release of the July jobs report, which the media portrayed as a mixed bag, since it was an addition of 163,000 jobs (good, particularly given the weakness in recent reports), but also an increase in the unemployment rate to 8.3% (more on this in a second). Revisions to previous months weren't very different (a few more jobs in May, few less in June), so what do I draw out of this?

First of all, it matches my theory that this remains a slow-but-steady recovery, as private sector jobs are now up by more than 4.5 million in the last 30 months, and above zero when compared to when Obama took office in January 2009 (remarkable given that it was -3.3 million this time 3 years ago, and still falling). Even with GOP sabotage driving down the number of government jobs, total jobs are also back near zero since January of '09. In both measures, this puts Obama ahead of George W. Bush's record for first-term job performance.

A few other things that jump out at me is the seasonal adjustment factor to these numbers. As mentioned previously, I think seasonal adjustments are too big in these reports, as there are fewer "seasonal-only" jobs out there compared to past times, and a more steady amount month-to-month. This drove down the U.S. job numbers for 2nd quarter, but it also drove up the July numbers. Check out the contrasts.

Seasonal vs. non-seasonal job changes, April-July 2012
April- +68,000 seas.= +864,000 non-seas.
May- +87,000 seas. = +768,000 non-seas.
June- +64,000 seas. = +349,000 non-seas.
July- +163,000 seas. = -1,204,000 non-seas.

TOTAL CHANGE= +385,000 seas. = +777,000 non-seas.

This also presents a danger to Obama's job performance number, as August and September act like April, May and June, where the seasonal numbers are smaller than the non-seasonal ones (August's deflator is small, September's is bigger). Especially given school hiring cutbacks, this could be something to watch going forward.

The other interesting note is the unemployment rate. If you do the math on the number, it comes out to 8.25%, which gets rounded up to 8.3%. If it's 0.01% lower, it gets reported at 8.2%, and you can bet lots of media don't say much about it, even though it was still up over June;s 8.22%. Also means there as much that needs to be done to get that rate back down to 8.2% or 8.1% for August.

In addition, the unemployment survey goes the opposite of the payrolls survey, and expects as increase in the number of jobs and workers out there in July.

unemployment survey- July 2012
Labor force- -150,000 seas. = +141,000 non-seas.
"Employed"- -195,000 seas. = -76,000 non-seas.
"Unemployed"- +45,000 seas. = +216,000 non-seas.

Now if the payrolls deflator was used here, it would be expected that the number of those working would go down, but instead, the household/ unemployment survey indicates that employment and labor force should go UP for July. So that strikes me as inconsistent. Interestingly, the non-seasonal "employed" number is up 2.8 million year-over-year, which is above the payrolls number of 1.8 million.

So that's what I read out of this report- generally a mixed decision with a nice seasonally-helped bounceback in employment. Between this and strong retail sales numbers and slightly improved consumer confidence numbers I'd say we're still on a decent growth track for the start of the 3rd Quarter. Much to the dismay of Mitt Romney and the Baggers whose main hope is a bad economy to blame on Obama.

Was it rigged on June 5?

Figured I'd go with the provocative headline here, but it is something that I've wondered since the recall election. Given that there were huge discrepancies between the conservatives being overampled in polls before the election vs. the actual people who voted on June 5, it didn't really add up that Walker's reported winning margin of 6.8% was in line with what those pro-conservative polls were showing.

Then I noticed several online articles pointing out that Wisconsin seemed to be susceptible to voter irregularities and noticed that many rural counties gave voting machine contracts to Command Central at the behest of Waukesha Co Clerk (and GOP hack) Kathy Nickolaus. In addition, many Wisconsinites have been working with Wisconsin Wave and other organizations to hand-count the ballots, so much so that Wisconsin Wave is now reporting that they have no many volunteers they have to turn people away, and that a demonstration of voting machines at GAB that the GAB's Reid Magney described as "standing-room only" (at the bottom of the WSJ report).

Clearly, a lot of people aren't taking the retaining of Scott Walker at face value. So I decided to look at the election numbers themselves, compare them to the last 2 statewide elections (Walker vs. Barrett 2010 and Prosser vs. Kloppenburg, 2011), and see if there was something out of the ordinary in places with these Command Central machines.

Using info from a Wisconsin Wave meeting I attended, I had 30 counties that had significant usage of Command Central machines outside of the Milwaukee area. I then compared those results to 36 other Wisconsin counties that didn't have as many Command Central machines. I also put in a third category that included Milwaukee County, the 4 counties that border Milwaukee, and Dane County, because as I've mentioned before, those parts of the state have unique voting patterns that don't really change much from election to election (they're a turnout game). Plus, Racine County had a heated Senate election between Lehman and Wangaard that could skew election results a bit.

You run the numbers, and here's what you get. I will use the "Dem" candidates (Barrett and Kloppenburg) as the benchmarks:

Command Central Counties
Barrett '10- 43.21%
Klopp- 47.94% (+4.73%)
Barrett '12- 40.52% (-2.69% vs. 2010, -7.42% vs. Klopp)

Non-Command Central
Barrett '10- 43.10%
Klopp- 48.85% (+5.75%)
Barrett '12- 42.67% (-0.43% vs. 2010, -6.18% vs. Klopp)

Milwaukee-Madison area
Barrett '10- 50.95%
Klopp- 51.16% (+0.21%)
Barrett '12- 52.02% (+1.07% vs. 2010, +0.86% vs. Klopp)

So you can see in the non-Milwaukee Madison areas, there was movement to Kloppenburg in 2011, and then movement back to Walker in 2012. But the Command Central Counties had a larger bounce back for Walker and lower share for Barrett, as shown by this graph.

So it looks like the Command Central counties flipped more than 2% for Walker vs. the non-Command ones. If you plug in that difference back into the election, and assume that the Command Central counties voted the same as the non-Command Central ones, Walker still wins, but by about 153,000 instead of 171,000, or about 6%. Not really a significant effect here. (late edit: I did not look at touch-screens vs. optical scan machines, like Richard Charnin did here, and he says there's a clear pro-Walker rigging. I don't have an optical scan vs. touch-screen list, so I'll hold off on this)

The real story when you look at numbers like this is how badly Barrett got beat in the parts of Wisconsin outside of the Madison and Milwaukee areas. If Barrett would have held near 50-50 for those 1.45 million votes, he'd be governor today. Instead, he only got 42.0%, and that was the difference-maker. And these areas were the most likely to fall prey to the Walker meme of "a recall isn't necessary", and it is not hard to imagine that 5-10% of those voters disapproved of Walker but also disapproved of the recall process, and cast their votes for Walker.

In addition to not explaining the need for a recall good enough, it also illustrates the failure of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin to get out into the other parts of the state and show the destruction of Fitzwalkerstan. They have to stop assuming that people will just get it on their own, and instead should show that progressive ideas and investments in social goods like education and the environment work and are a much more likely pathway to success than expecting corporates to take of you out of the goodness of their hearts.

But I do appreciate Wisconsin Wave and others continuing to draw attention to the issue of black box voting and the potential for election fraud. Just because the "Command Central effect" wasn't big enough to be the deciding factor in the June 5 election doesn't mean that can't be the case in November, particularly when combine with other GOP rigging such as voter ID and absentee ballot fraud where GOP officials send ballots for voters.

We need to keep this issue of election integrity front and center, because as shown in Racine recount of Lehman-Wangaard, the GOP will do anything in their power (legal or not) to deny a legitimately-elected Dem by any means they can. We should also remind people that just because Scott Walker got more people to vote for him on June 5, it doesn't mean they agreed with his policies, and that it means little for November or for 2014.

You DIDN'T build that on your own- who you crappin'?

It's funny to see Republicans try to continue this myth of the "self-made man", and try to denigrate President Obama for daring to make the following statement.

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me -- because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t -- look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. (Applause.)

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

So the Republi-posers, desperate to get any attention away from the flailing Romney campaign, have tried to have a number of photo ops with tough-talking business owners claiming that Obama denigrated them, and that they did "build that themselves," and didn't need government help to do so.

Except for one problem- They DID need government help. Usually a lot of it.

In New Hampshire, the star of a Romney ad took $800,000 in tax-exempt government loans and got tens of thousands in government contracts, as well as a U.S. Small Business Association loan of more than $500,000 when got started "with his own bare hands" in the 1980s.

In Florida, a construction business manager appeared at a Romney event, but said the millions she pulls in from contracts from public schools and governments wasn't an example of government helping business.

"[Manager Rebecca Smith said] If the government needs to build a school, or a city hall or a public library, the government has a right to build it with their own forces. The government buys printing paper. Does that mean that a paper distributor that might have a purchase order from a government agency is any less of a business, because the government bought a piece of their services or products?

"Does that mean A.D. Morgan [Smith's firm] is any less of a contractor because we build jails and schools and city halls and libraries? Hell no. Government is people. There is no us and them.

"How can you try to detract from Rebecca Smith or A.D. Morgan by saying: 'You got it from the government?' The government is me."

The article goes on to mention that her father worked for NASA (being paid with taxpayer dollars) and that she attended public schools and got student loans to attend college. Sounds like Rebecca Smith is a shining example of who Obama was talking about, whose ambition was matched by a government investment, and it led to a great result for all involved. So why disavow it?

Here's another in Ohio, where Dennis Sollman showed up in a Romney ad saying the president was denigrating his successful electrical construction company by saying the government helped him. Of course, a quick look at Sollman's record shows millions in contracts from public schools and universities, and it makes you wonder how long Sollman would last if public schools had their construction budgets limited by Romney-style austerity.

Closer to home, Wisconsin TeaBag politicians consistently hit the hypocrisy meter on being "self-reliant" and not in need of government help. Senate candidate Eric (Hedge Fund) Hovde complains about the TARP bailouts of banks, but that didn't stop his company from investing in 33 bailed-out banks that took $188 billion in TARP money, nor did it stop him from being the director of a tech company that dealt with more than $2 million in contracts resulting from stimulus funds. Hovde replies by saying the tech company's CUSTOMERS only took the evil stimulus money, but somehow Mr. Business Savvy doesn't seem to understand that businesses tend to need customers to survive.

Hovde's primary opponent and fellow "entrepreneur" Mark Neumann took over $80,000 in stimulus energy incentives as part of his home-building business, and wrote letters to Congress asking for it to continue.

And we can't forget Mr. Free Enterprise himself, Sen. Ron Johnson, who got to the top of his company by marrying a billionaire's daughter, used taxpayer-funded prison labor to cut costs at PACUR, and had employees go onto BadgerCare to avoid having to pay health care costs; both moves increased his profits and chances of success. (Strangely, RoJo doesn't seem to understand that Obamacare is doing the same thing to make many other small businesses in the country more competitive by cutting benefit costs) RoJo also is a living example of how government infrastructure helps businesses, as he got the City of Oshkosh to give him a $75,000 grant 30 years ago to build a rail spur to allow his company to transport their product. Yet this guy seems to think he built his FIL's company all by himself without anyone else giving a helping hand. Pathetic self-deluded fool.

Look, I understand that the first rule of any GOP in the 21st Century is "What I say doesn't apply to me," but still, why BS about this? The poser from New Hampshire even admits he got a break.

“I’m not going to turn a blind eye because the money came from the government,” Gilchrest said. “As far as I’m concerned, I’m getting some of my tax money back. I’m not stupid, I’m not going to say ‘no.’ Shame on me if I didn’t use what’s available.”

ABSOLUTELY, and there's nothing wrong with that. So why do you have a problem with admitting this, or giving other people the same chance you had to live out their dreams and have a better chance at success?

But I guess that would take away from this tough-guy image they crafted as some kind of American Dream example that they "did it all by themselves." These people are so limited and insecure in where they are that they have to go out of their way to create stories and prevent competition from others who just want the same chances they did, like somehow that'll knock them down a few pegs and reveal them to be not so special and extra hard-working.

There's a great radio segment on 670AM out of Chicago on Thursdays called "Who You Crappin'?", and it basically calls out people in sports and other places out for hypocrisy and absurd inconsistencies. And it's what I want to yell at these big-talking "small business" owners who had so many issues with Obama's statement. They can't admit they are living examples of what Barack's talking about, and they have no gratitude for what they have been given in added opportunities as a result of government programs.

And for those reasons alone, they deserve to get taxed more, because they don't appreciate what they have, and how they were able to get there.

Nope, this still ain't working, Scotty

A few more reports were out this week illustrating that Walker-style austerity continues to hold Wisconsin back from the strong growth that we're seeing in much of the Midwest. This was no more obvious than when shown with the Philly Fed's recent releases of its monthly coincident and leading indexes for all 50 states. These idexes showed that Wisconsin's economic growth over the last 3 months had slowed to 0.18% for the 12 months since Walker's budget took effect on July 1, 2011, which was well below the U.S. rate of 2.74%, and Wisconsin badly lagged all of its Midwestern rivals.

Change in state coincident indexes, Jun 2011- June 2012
Ohio +5.53%
Mich +5.24%
Ind. +3.85%
U.S. +2.74%
Iowa +2.59%
Ill. +2.23%
Minn +2.02%
Wisc +0.18%

And that trend isn't expected to break in the next 6 months, as shown by the leading indexes. Wisconsin is expected to grow at less than half of the U.S. rate through the end of this year, making it by far the worst performer in the Midwest since the age of Fitzwalkerstan began at the start of 2011.

You'll also notice the top performer - Ohio, with a lot of the growth in since last Summer. You may recall that Ohio had a similar struggle to the one in Wisconsin about union rights, and had a little election in November where collective bargaining rights were returned to the public sector with overwhelming support. At the time, Karl Rove's forces were warning of severe job losses and economic recession if these rights were returned to public sector workers. Well the evidence shows that instead Ohio has had the best economy in the Midwest and one of the best in the U.S. since SB5 was shot down, while Wisconsin removed collective bargaining rights, and has by far the worst economy in the Midwest.

And Walker's failures also show up in the long-term trend, as you can see Wisconsin was a middle-of-the-pack Midwestern state when it came to being hurt by the Great Recession, but since Fitzwallkerstan started, it has been left out in an otherwise robust recovery in our part of the U.S., where only the FIBs and the Cheeseheads haven't gotten back to where we were when Obama took office.

But hey, maybe the experts are wrong, and Walker's prediction of "prosperity is just around the corner" is finally going to come true as year two of his budget takes hold. Oh, and we have a headline from yesterday on the Wisconsin economy? Well let me have it!

Huge Plunge in NAPM Milwaukee Manufacturing Index.

Awww, crap.