The numbers don't lie, but the Guv sure does

With the release of this week's Quarterly Census on Employment and Wages yet again showing Wisconsin in the bottom half of the U.S. for job growth (click here for the always-awesome interactive chart), the Walker Administration has now decided to raise its game. They are lying and deceiving at higher levels of mendacity.

Here's the first one, where Walker tried to resurrect a zombie lie on Friday.

"These numbers are March to March, and in March of last year, we were still three months out from the recall election," Walker said at a press conference in Chicago, where he appeared at an economic forum. "And as I point out repeatedly, employers in the state were basically frozen until they knew what would happen in that election and the uncertainty it caused."

In reply to a question about Wisconsin's jobs growth, from a Chicago news organization, Walker added this elaboration:

"There's no doubt in our first two years, because of the protests, the recalls, that they had an impact early on. Much as there is concern nationally about the impact of Obamacare and the impact it has on employers, they just wonder with uncertainty."

THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE. And one glance at the QCEW private-sector job numbers for Wisconsin proves this.

Every year more people are working in Wisconsin in June than March because of Summer tourism and related seasonal employment. But a larger number of people dropped off the work rolls in the 9 months AFTER the recall than in the same time period for the 2 years before it.

QCEW change in raw Wis. private-sector jobs
Jun 2010-Mar 2011 -67,954
Jun 2011-Mar 2012 -68,107
Jun 2012-Mar 2013 -81,761

So the we had an increased drop of 13,600 jobs in the time after the recalls vs. the same time period in the previous two years. The same reality shows in the seasonally-adjusted job charts. Let's use both 6 and 12-month intervals after the June 2012 recall, and the intervals before that.

Change in Wisconsin jobs, seasonally adjusted

Dec 2011- Jun 2012 +15,700 all, +18,800 private
Jun 2011- Jun 2012 +34,600 all, +37,600 private

Jun 2012- Dec 2012 +9,800 all, +5,000 private
Jun 2012- Jun 2013 +25,800 all, +25,600 private

You can see that hiring hit a wall after the recall, and didn't pick up compared to the same time period before the election. In fact, there is more proof that Walker winning the recall stopped job growth in Wisconsin, instead of ramping it up.

Also, there's a WisGOP talking point of "look at the last 4 months of job growth." And while those last 4 months look impressive, with more than 35,000 jobs added, isolating those 4 months is a classic case of cherry-picking. It conveniently leaves out the jobs bomb in April, when more than 20,000 jobs were lost in Wisconsin. If you change the last 4 months of job growth into 6 months, the stats look like this.

Job change in Wisconsin, Feb 2013- Aug 2013
All jobs +9,100 (average +1,517)
Private sector +14,700 (average +2,286)
1-year rate: +18,200 all, +29,400 private

Not really much different than we had before, so unlike what Scotty said on Friday in Chicago, I don't see any evidence that there'll be a "significant increase" in the pace of job growth in Wisconsin by the end of the year.

And here's the second big lie by Walker and company that got exposed this week. The GOP oligarchs at Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce have been running hundreds of thousands in ads claiming Wisconsin's economy is doing well and crediting Gov. Walker for this allegedly strong performance. I pointed out some of these out-of-context deceptions earlier this month, but someone a whole lot higher up in the food chain also called out Walker and the WMC for their lies late last week.

Walker and WMC have also been quoting the Philly Fed’s “Leading Indicator," a 6-month forecasting of the Coincident Index for each state, to say Wisconsin’s economy is projected to show the second-largest improvement in the country.

“We do not consider state rankings based on the coincident and leading indexes to be valid,” says Paul Flora, Senior Economic Analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia in an email to the Cap Times.

Flora says the differences in the various state economies influence the relative change in the index from month to month. He says an older, mature economy, such as New York, tends to experience smaller percentage changes than a smaller, younger economy, such as North Dakota.

Now, I also have extensively quoted the Philly Fed's state indexes over the last couple of years as proof of Walker's failures, but I've always done it as a point of comparison with other states, and done it from a common starting point in time, with all states starting at 0. As mentioned previously, what makes the Walker folks so dishonest about how they use these numbers is that they cherry-pick the last 3 months, and ignore the longer-range time that puts those numbers in perspective. You know, like how Wisconsin is dead last in the same index in the Midwest since Walker took office over 2 1/2 years ago.



Don't get me wrong, a good short-term uptick is a nice thing to have, but it doesn't change the fact that the overall record is horrible. Basically, falling for WMC's BS is the equivalent of getting excited because the Brewers have had one of the best records in the NL for their last 21 games (14-7). Just because that stat is true, it doesn't mean the Brewers still won't finish well below .500, and it doesn't change the fact that the franchise had a lousy year. The strong finish also shouldn't be a reason you should consider the Brew Crew to be playoff contenders in 2014.

Unfortunately, we're a lot more honest in this country when it comes to discussing sports than we are in discussing politics. But our media needs to remember that there are not "two sides to the story" when you are talking about raw numbers, be they in job creation, or in comparing the figures in an index over time. You can debate why something did or did not happen, but Scott Walker can't be running around saying Wisconsin job creation picked up after the June 2012 recall elections WHEN THE ACTUAL NUMBERS SHOW IT DID NOT.

Walker, WisGOP, and WMC would never float these lies if our state's media would simply DO ITS JOB AND CALL THE WALKER FOLKS OUT when they try to slip these things by them. We need to pound this reality into the public sphere, and ridicule the weak-minded people who fall for these clear lies, to show bystanders how wrong these people are, and to give a higher authority to FACTS AND HISTORY. If that means a full-frontal attack on right-wing radio stations and media that continue to display these deceptions and lies as fact, then that's what it takes.

As someone who makes a living partly due to data and formulas, I resent the Wisconsin GOP trying to spin things that are clearly proven false by the numbers. And our voters and our media should be equally insulted that this dishonest Administration views them as gullible suckers.

Wisconsin continues to struggle with jobs

A few quick thoughts on yesterday's release of the Quarterly Census on Employment and Wages.

Wisconsin is still in the doldrums when compared to the rest of the nation. 31st in the country in total jobs created, and 34th in the nation in the private sector. The only reason they weren't in the 40s (like I thought they'd be) is because large states like California, Texas, Michigan, Florida and Georgia had big increases, which helped explain how the overall U.S. private sector increase of 1.6%, but the median state was more like 1.3%.

That being said, Wisconsin's private sector job increase of 1.08% is still the lowest it's been since Sept. 2012, and you have to go back to September 2010 to find one lower than that. In fact, this recent Quarterly report gives us a good look at the effect of Walker policies, as Act 10 was passed into law in March 2011.

Private sector job change, Wisconsin
March 2010- March 2011 +1.90%
March 2011- March 2012 +1.79% (-0.11%)
March 2012- March 2013 +1.08% (-0.61%)



And we continue not to measure up to our Midwestern neighbors, ranking 5th out of 7 for job growth, with Michigan and Minnesota doubling us up at over 2% growth.

We'll have more on this later, including the absurdity of Scott Walker trying to take credit for adding more jobs than 28 other states, while leaving out that we have more people than 30 other states. But it is obvious that Wisconsin continues to lag the rest of the nation and its Midwestern neighbors, and with the 20,000 job loss in April still to be counted, those bad stats are in line to continue, no matter what WMC's ads try to tell you.

Once again, 3 good months doesn't change Walker's bad record

I noticed that Scott Walker has a new favorite economic metric- the Philadelphia Federal Reserve's monthly state-by-state indexes. And with good reason, because the state coincident indexes released today show that Wisconsin had the 2nd highest-growth in the U.S. for the Summer months of June, July and August. And I know this'll stun you, but Walker's office came out within a few hours with a press release mentioning it.

Wisconsin’s growth rate over the last three months is the best in 25 years and the state’s ranking is the best in history.

“This is more great news, not only for the state, but for job-seekers and employers as well,” Governor Walker said. “A better economy means a better quality of life for all Wisconsinites, and that is why it is my top priority. This latest history-making ranking is one more sign we are heading in the right direction.”

Notice the mention of "heading in the right direction." Because that's what a politician does when their policies have generally failed but they've had a recent upturn. Bush and Cheney gave a whole lot of "heading in the right direction" comments while our troops were in Iraq. Didn't mean things were handled right, or that things wouldn't revert to horrible soon.

And I wasn't the only guy who noticed our fair leader now proclaiming how the Philly Fed survey was the one to look at. Wisconsin Public Radio pointed out how the Guv has conveniently stopped talking about another economic stat.

About a month before his recall election, monthly estimates showed Walker had lost jobs his first year in office. To counter that, Walker sped the release of actual job counts showing job gains. (and he lied about what those numbers were).

“The numbers we're talking about today aren't a poll,” he said at the time. “They're an actual survey of more than 150,000 employers of this state.”

The numbers Walker highlighted that day and for more than a year since are the backbone of the federal government's Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, which economists regard as the most thorough and accurate job measure.

But quoting the QCEW as an accurate measure of how you're policies are doing is so 2012.

“Rankings that come out are typically based on quarterly numbers that come out from [the Bureau of Labor Statistics], which are a six-month lag,” [Walker] says. “What we're trying to look at is not six months ago … but where are we going to be in the next six months.”

Walker is talking about the Philadelphia Federal Reserve's Leading Index, a complex prediction of where state economies are headed based on several factors, including housing permits, interest rates, and hours worked in manufacturing.

Marquette University's Charles Franklin says it's telling that Walker is moving away from a hard job count that's easy to understand to a much more complicated estimate that's hard to explain. “Politicians are not economists,” he says. “What politicians care about is the perception of how the economy is doing rather than the best or most reliable measure.”

It's also no coincidence that Walker's change of emphasis has happened when the QCEW is slated to be released this week, and will likely show Wisconsin in the bottom 10 of states for job growth from March 2012- March 2013. In addition, let's see if those job numbers stay strong now that the kids are back to school and frost will be soon be showing on some pumpkins.

And notice that Walker's only mentioning Philly Fed stats from the last few months. The guy's been in office for more than 2 1/2 years now, with a WisGOP majority for almost all that time. Why doesn't he stand behind the whole body of work?

Well, this chart shows you why- even with the good summer months of 2013, Wisconsin is still DEAD LAST in the Midwest in the Philly Fed index during the Age of Fitzwalkerstan.



Sorry Scotty, but the nice recent numbers do not erase more than 2 years of failed policies. And your newest job creation package is a classic "too little, too late" move, in the hope that voters have forgotten what you've been pulling for nearly 3 years.

Well, I sure haven't forgotten how badly you've screwed Wisconsin's economy. Just like the 2013 Brewers, one late-in-the-term good streak doesn't change the fact that this still has been a lousy team over at Walker and Friends. And just like the Brewers, the minor improvements we are be seeing now may mean very little for how well things go in 2014.

Decent August in Wisconsin, but still behind the curve

This week featured another Wisconsin jobs report, and it was a relatively good one, with 7,300 private sector jobs added, and 6,100 overall. Some of the private sector growth was offset by downward revisions for July by 1,800, meaning July actually had a seasonally-adjusted loss of jobs by 100. But even if you knock off the July loss, 6,000 private sector jobs gained in two months is in line with the seasonally-adjusted increase of 35,000 private sector jobs in Wisconsin for the last 12 months.

If we go inside the numbers for August, there are a couple of standout figures. The first is the increase in Construction jobs, 3,300 on a seasonally-adjusted basis, and 2,000 on a non-seasonally adjusted one. This means that seasonal layoffs in construction aren't happening, and instead we're seeing hiring in late Summer. Now, we'd only gained 1,000 jobs in the Construction sector for the 11 months before August 2013, so it remains to be seen if this is a sign of growth, or just a one-month fluke of timing. But certainly good news if you work in those industries.

On the flip side are the job stats in Manufacturing for Wisconsin. July was revised down by 2,500 jobs on a seasonally-adjusted basis, and 500 more Manufacturing jobs were lost in August, for a total of 3,000 fewer Manufacturing jobs than we thought we had this time last month. Some of this was expected, as Page 2 of this month's U.S. jobs report pointed out "auto manufacturers laid off more workers for model changeover in July than in recent years," and there were big downward revisions in Manufacturing for July nationwide.

But this doesn't explain the slippage we saw in Wisconsin for August, and it doesn't explain why we've seen 6,600 manufacturing jobs go away in Wisconsin over the last 6 months.



And yes, Wisconsin is ahead of the nation's in adding manufacturing jobs since Gov. Walker took office in January 2011. But as I brought up while debunking WMC's lies about Walker's job record, Wisconsin has the 2nd-highest percentage of jobs in manufacturing in the country, so we should be ahead of the national rate when manufacturing jobs are being added.

We've had a nice runup in jobs since the disasters in March and April, but the losses in those two months and the stagnation before that leave us well into the hole compared to the rest of the country. Despite some recent narrowing, the Walker jobs gap is still nearly 40,000 jobs overall, and nearly 50,000 in the private sector.





And keep your eyes peeled on the next two months, as kids go back to school and seasonal jobs end. That caused a lot of the "increases" in May and June, as those kinds of jobs had more hiring than normal, and if those jobs aren't maintained in Fall, we'll see those turn into job "losses" in the next couple of reports.

Wisconsin slipping in 3 major economic stats

Just a burst of economic data out today, and I want to center on one report in particular, which is the Census Bureau's annual release on Income, Poverty and Health Insurance coverage in America. I wanted to break out this report to show what happened in 2012, and how both the country and the state of Wisconsin has fared in the wake of the recession. And Wisconsin has certainly slipped in these areas in the age of Fitzwalkerstan.

Incomes
The country is still stagnating in this category, and it's one of the big letdowns in what otherwise has been a steady expansion over the last 4 years. Real (inflation-adjusted) household income is 8.3% its 2007 peak in the U.S., and now sits at just over $51,000. Even in what seemed to be an increasing expansion in 2012, the Census Bureau says real household income dropped by $83.

The same trend of falling income holds in Wisconsin, as we were down $56 to $53,079 in 2012, and still are nowhere near our 2006 peak of over $58,000. While Wisconsin didn't see the disasters that other industrial states like Michigan, Indiana and Ohio had (and Ohio and Indiana are still having), we also are well behind Minnesota, whose household incomes have gone up each of the last 2 years, with a median income more than $8,000 above Wisconsin.

Median household income, 2006-2012


So this one you really can't throw on Walker, since Wisconsin's income stagnation is mostly reflective of the income stagnation in the rest of the nation. But it is worth noting how Iowa and Minnesota are rebounding while we stay flat.

Poverty
The poverty rate in America stayed the same in 2012 as it was in 2011, at 15.0%, and has largely been unchanged from its 2009-2010 average of 14.8%. Wisconsin's rate was lower, at 11.4%, but that good news masks a bigger story. Wisconsin's rate was much lower in the 2 years that the state was under Doyle/Dem control, at 10.5%, but the poverty rate spiked to 13.1% in Wisconsin in Walker's first year in office, in 2011. As you can see, it was 1 of only 2 Midwestern states to see such a rise in poverty over these two years.

Poverty rate, U.S. and Midwest states


In fact, the Census Bureau says Wisconsin's 2-year average increase of 1.7% made it one of only 7 states in the nation to have a statistically significant rise in the poverty rate in the country. And with no other state in the Midwest having such a jump, including other GOP governors taking over in Iowa, Michigan, and Ohio. So it sounds like Scott Walker's brand of TeaBag austerity is a definite standout when it comes to increasing poverty in Wisconsin.

Health insurance
I've mentioned Walker health insurance plenty of times, including an analysis of just how stupid his anti-Obamacare policies are from both a fiscal and policy standpoint. But now the Census Bureau offers hard proof that more Wisconsinites are now doing without health insurance since Walker has taken office.

It doesn't look bad on the surface, as Wisconsin is still 7th-best at having its citizens with health insurance, with an uninsured rate of 9.7%. But Scotty didn't build that strong standing, as a comparison with the same stats from 2010 will show. Wisconsin has fallen from 5th to 7th in the U.S. during the Age of Fitzwalkerstan for having the lowest rate of its people be uninsured, and our neighbors to the west was one of the states that passed us.

Lowest rate of uninsured, 2010
1. Mass 5.5%
2. Haw. 7.7%
3. Ver. 9.3%
4. Maine 9.3%
5. Wis. 9.4%
6. Minn 9.7%

Lowest rate of uninsured, 2012 and 2010 change
1. Mass 4.1% (-1.4%)
2. Ver. 7.0% (-2.3%)
3. Haw. 7.7% (0.0%)
4. Conn 8.1% (-3.1%)
5. Minn 8.3% (-1.4%)
6. Maine 9.5% (+0.2%)
7. Wis. 9.7% (+0.3%)
8. Iowa 10.1% (-1.9%)

Also notice that the only two states in that 2012 list that had higher uninsured rates also elected two of the most obnoxious TeaBag governors in 2010- Walker and Maine's Paul LePage. It doesn't happen in a vacuum.

Wisconsin's slippage in having its citizens be insured really stands out when you compare our 2010-2012 increase in uninsured with the decrease that's been going on both nationwide, and in the Midwest.

Rate of uninsured, 2010 vs. 2012


And with this trend in place, and many states taking Obamacare and expanded Medicaid benefits in the coming months, I'm thinking Wisconsin won't maintain its top 10 ranking in uninsured much longer. Which means Scott Walker has taken away yet another reason that Wisconsinites could take pride in - because we are no longer a unique place that had a government who cared about its most vulnerable citizens.

So in addition to the 51,000 job Walker jobs gap, we now have numbers showing that Wisconsin's incomes have stagnated, with more people falling into poverty, and more of its citizens lacking health insurance during the Age of Fitzwalkerstan. Other than shifting funds and power to campaign contributors and other oligarchs, does anyone think "it's working" with Scott Walker.

Koch/Bradley fronts keep lying about Wisconsin pensions

The right-wing propaganda machine tried to slip another one through in Wisconsin recently, and they were shot down with vehemence. And no, it shouldn't surprise you that it has Koch/ALEC fingerprints all over it.

In the Orwellian-titled "State Budget Solutions" webpage, there is story after story claiming a crisis in pension funding, and the need for "reform." One of these stories claimed that the Wisconsin Retirement System (WRS), which handles most Wisconsin public employee pensions, were underfunded by nearly $60 billion dollars, and were only 57% funded. Also interesting is that the 57% figure was still the best-funded system in the country, according to State Budget Solutions (or SBS, as I'll call them)So how did the SBS people come up with this figure?

Figures were drawn from state Fiscal Year 2012 Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports, as well as the Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports and actuarial valuations published by individual plans. In each case, figures were from the most up-to-date valuation available at the time of research. Plans were compiled based on the United States Census Bureau's Annual Survey of Public Pensions and state-level financial reports. Plan liabilities were discounted according to the 15-year Treasury bond yield as of August 21, 2013. That rate was 3.225 percent.

That part in bold is key, because the Wisconsin Department of Employee Trust Funds (ETF) took a look at that report, and noticed that it was heavily flawed.

At issue is the rate of return to be used in determining the present value of those future obligations. In general, the argument for using a low rate of return, like the current yield on Treasury bonds, to measure the present value of those future benefits is based on the theory that a guaranteed, low-risk rate accurately reflects the guaranteed nature of the future benefits. Not only has the approach been rejected by the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB), the unique benefit features of the WRS make the use of such a low rate of return inappropriate. For example, under the WRS, the future accrual of benefits for active employees is not guaranteed. Benefits to be earned in the future can and have been changed by the legislature from time to time. In addition, pension benefits for active employees and retirees are linked directly to investment performance and change based upon that performance. Effectively, the report assumes that employers bear all the risk in the WRS and that the benefits of active and retired participants and beneficiaries are immune to those risks. It is well known that the WRS does not operate that way. Indeed, benefits payable to retirees have been cut by more than $4 billion over the last 5 years in response to the financial crisis of 2008.

Furthermore, contrary to the report’s assertion that the WRS uses a single 7.2% rate of return, the WRS in fact uses a far more conservative 5.0% rate for retired participants and for active and inactive participants following retirement. The 7.2% rate applies only to active participants prior to their retirement. This is approximately equivalent to using a 5.5% rate of return for all participants at all stages of life. The diversified and balanced investment portfolio of the WRS has met and is reasonably expected to continue to meet or exceed that rate over the long-term. For example, the actual rate of return for the WRS over the last 10 years is 8% through July 31, 2013. Using these more appropriate return rates for the WRS helps ensure adequate funding for future benefits at a reasonable cost today.

So the SBS people are putting out numbers that are simply not relevant to how the WRS operates. It also is worthy of noting the strong performance of the administration of the State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB), who chooses the investments for the WRS, as the higher 8% rate of return includes the stock market crash from 2007-2009.

With the WRS's generally-accepted assumptions put into place, Wisconsin pensions are on firm ground. And it's not just the ETF saying that, as Wall Street analyst Morningstar put out a report today mentioning that Wisconsin's public employee pension system was one to be envied.

Several states have very strong pension systems. Six states have funded levels of more than 90%, and seven have [unfunded liabilities] of less than $100 per capita. Wisconsin remains the strongest system, with a 99.9% funded ratio and [an unfunded liability] of $18 per capita.

So why is there such a difference from what the SBS people are saying? Take a look the SBS "Partners" at the bottom of the page, and then cross-check them with the Center for Media and Democracy's Sourcewatch, and you get the answer.

The State Policy Network (SPN)

The Franklin Center for Public Integrity (Integrity! That's the joke son!)

The Freedom Foundation

George Mason University's Mercatus Center

And yes, ALEC

What do they have in common? All part of the "research organizations" that have received heavy backing from foundations headed by Charles and David Koch and Harry and Lynde Bradley. Yep, SBS is nothing more than a right-wing Koch/Bradley propaganda page, and like most Koch/Bradley outfits, produce nothing but lies that are thrown out to try to deceive a lazy, unsuspecting media.

This clip from Robert Greenwald's "Koch Brothers Exposed" cannot be played enough. It shows similar lies that Koch groups and the right-wing noise machine have said about Social Security, with narration from the amazing U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.



Regardless of what Paul Ryan and other Koch whores may say, Wisconsin's public employee pensions system remains the model that other states should copy, and has no need to be touched or modified in any way. We know the greedheads at the Koch and Bradley Foundations will never be satisfied until they grab every last dollar from a worker to put into their pockets, and the pockets of paid propagandists like the "State Budget Solutions" network. Which is why we need to call out anything these fake front groups that tries to pass off souped up (S)BS like this as fact.

Breaking down Bucky's screwjob from Saturday

I've had about 36 hours to digest this, and yesterday's ass-kicking by the Pack helped to calm me down over, but what happened to the Badgers on Saturday was unacceptable, and I'll break down just how badly this was screwed up by Pac-12 officials.

First, the final 18 seconds of the ASU-Wisconsin game, for your viewing "pleasure".



So let's take the events as they occur.

0:18 UW QB Joel Stave snaps ball, goes to middle of field to set up FG.

0:15 While awkward, Stave takes knee, sets ball down, and whistle clearly blows the play dead. ASU sideline will later claim that it's a "fumble" due to Stave not being down at the time, but the refs' whistles clearly indicate that the ruling on the field is no fumble. The play clock is not a factor in this play, but it starts its 40-second countdown from the point is which the play is ruled dead, meaning the next play can be started once the offense is set and/or they substitute. Bucky is not subbing, so the ball should be spotted and able to be snapped immediately.

0:12 Badger line is trying to be set, but ASU defenders are lying on the ball. If there are any second thoughts about this play being a fumble, the refereeing crew should be stopping the clock to discuss this. They are not, indicating that they have decided that Stave was down, and that it's Badgers' ball.

0:09 Umpire taps ASU defender on shoulder because defender IS STILL LYING ON THE BALL. At this point, any type of competent crew stops the clock because of the obvious delay, and very well may throw the flag on ASU for intentional delay of game. Stave is turning to the head ref to ask what's going on.

Remember, in this circumstance, the officiating crew is supposed to spot the ball as quickly as possible and get out of the way, allowing the offense a chance to spike the ball, which the Badgers would be set to do right now except that, you know, AN ASU PLAYER IS LYING ON THE BALL. But no delay of game, or any stoppage of the clock to allow players to unpile, given that there is no fumble.

0:06 The ASU player IS STILL LYING ON THE BALL. Stave turns away from ref and offense is trying to line up. Umpire has still not gotten the ball to be spotted.

0:04 Umpire finally spots ball (with no urgency whatsoever). Badgers' Kenzel Doe is giving a "WTF"? type of reaction at the top of the screen.

0:03 Umpire stands over the ball AND TELLS BADGER O-LINE TO BACK AWAY, which is the exact opposite of what he should be doing, which is running away from the line of scrimmage so UW can get set and snap the ball.

0:01 Badger line gets set to try to snap and Stave gets under center, almost in defiance of the umpire's direction.

0:00 Clock runs out before Badgers can snap the ball, with the umpire finally deciding to scramble out of the way.

Next 5 seconds, ASU players run off celebrating, Stave makes a beeline for the ref and starts screaming at him.

These refs could not have screwed up that sequence more if they tried, and between this ending and some very sketchy pass interference calls earlier in the game on UW, it sure makes you wonder if they did try.

I want AD Barry Alvarez to formally protest this game, because these refs misinterpreted rules delay of game, spotting of the ball, and the ability for the offense to snap the ball at the end of the game. Now, I have no illusions that their protest will be upheld, as there was still a field goal to kick, and they aren't going to fly UW's football team back to Tempe to play the last 10 seconds. But this should be done anyway to make the Pac-12 explain itself, and to make damn sure it takes action.

At the very least, I expect a formal apology from the Pac-12 to UW, and for those refs to be banned for at least a couple of games for their flagrant incompetence (at least I hope it was only incompetence). And if I'm UW, I'm demanding that Pac-12 officials never be allowed to do a Badger game in a Pac-12 stadium ever against. Where officials are from is written into contracts for these kinds of games, and so it has to be a condition, because these homer refs cost UW a great chance to win this game.

(EDIT: Yep, the Pac-12 has already admitted that these refs screwed up, saying that they didn;t "properly administer the end of game situation and act with appropriate urgency on the game's final play." No shit, guys. Apparently, the refs have been "reprimanded", whatever that means, and no, Alvarez is not satisfied with this response).

This ending is giving me flashbacks to this disaster from last year.



As a liberal in the state of Wisconsin, I'm really tired of seeing my guys get screwed by incompetent and corrupt officials, whether it be on the football field, or the courtroom. Something needs to be done about both....and NOW.