Something WisGOP isn't Unintimidated about- being a Midwest loser

With our governor's book tour, I find myself surprised that few of our allegedly legitimate journalists aren't asking what the results are of his "Unintimidated" policies- particularly Walker's 2010 promise of 250,000 new jobs (later changed to 250,000 private-sector jobs) in his four years in office. Because that promise is far from getting fulfilled, and Wisconsin continues to trail all of its Midwest partners in getting people back to work.

This was verified again with the monthly release of state-by-state jobs numbers, which is now back on track after the October government shutdown. While the Walker Administration was trying to brag about a large, seasonally-adjusted increase in October of 12,400 private sector jobs, they didn't add that there was a loss of 4,600 jobs in September, which meant the state merely kept pace with the rest of the country for the last 2 months in the rate of job growth. And they certainly weren't going to put it in the context of the larger picture of Walker's failure since taking office in January 2011, where Wisconsin has the worst private sector jobs record in the Midwest.

Private sector job growth, Jan 2011- Oct 2013
Mich +6.27%
Ind. +5.32%
Minn +5.22%
Ohio +4.07%
Iowa +4.04%
Ill. +3.96%
Wis. +3.78%

And here's a graph courtesy of the Capital Times and the Democurmudgeon blog saying the same thing, with the steady U.S. jobs growth included.



What's also getting attention is a part of the Wisconsin DWD's information that it provided to the Quartlerly Census on Employment and Wages (QCEW). In addition to a 37% decline in private sector jobs added in the last year (as I pointed out here), the QCEW data said the state actually LOST manufacturing jobs in that time period (by 119). This job loss became part of the Journal-Sentinel's headline story on the state's jobs release, and it clearly worried the "Unintimidated" folks at WisGOP. I say this because they quickly shot out a press release in light of the October jobs report featured an addition of 6,000 seasonally-adjusted jobs.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) today released state-by-state employment estimates that show Wisconsin posted the nation's sixth-highest rate of manufacturing job growth from October 2012 to October 2013.

Wisconsin manufacturing jobs grew by 2.1 percent year over year, or 9,700, ranking it 6th highest in growth rate among states in the preliminary seasonally adjusted Current Employment Statistics (CES) data.

Sounds good on its face, but then you look at the non-seasonally adjusted numbers, and the "growth" of the last 4 months isn't as impressive as it looks on the surface.

Change in manufacturing jobs, Wis., June 2013-Oct 2013
Seasonally-adjusted +4,500
Non-seasonally adjusted -2,300

So more people really aren't working in manufacturing in Wisconsin, there just aren't as many seasonal layoffs in the last few months. That's not a bad thing, mind you (less layoffs can be a sign of more demand overall), but it's not actual jobs being created. And having the 6th-increase in manufacturing jobs in the U.S. isn't all that impressive, because as the Journal-Sentinel report shows, Wisconsin SHOULD be near the top in manufacturing job growth.

Economists said the slowdown in manufacturing hiring was significant because the state's manufacturing sector is the biggest single employer. Wisconsin has vied with Indiana for years in leading the nation as the state with the largest share of its workforce employed in manufacturing. In the first half of 2013, Wisconsin's share of manufacturing employment (16.4%) narrowly trailed Indiana's (16.7%).

So giving Wisconsin credit for growth in manufacturing jobs is like saying it means something that Wisconsin is in the upper half of the country for snowfall. It comes with our territory, and unless it's well above most everybody else, it isn't a sign of anything significant or unusual.

Now did you hear anything about this weak jobs record and deceptive promotion come up during Governor Walker's East Coast book tour? No, of course not, that would require a critical media doing its homework that would require Scotty to answer some uncomfortable questions, and you can bet those are taken off the table when his puff-piece interviews were agreed to.

The book may be titled "Uninitimidated", but the Walker folks are most certainly scared over his continued awful record on jobs. And sooner than later, it'll probably sink a lot of the claims he's making east of I-95.

P.S.- And here's an editorial in today's New York Times on how Minnesota chose to take a progressive turn in policy while Wisconsin descended into Walker World, and has kicked Wisconsin's ass economically over the last 34 months.

Far overdue- Bucky is leaving AM620 WGOP

I've waited a long time for this. Wisconsin Badger athletics broadcasts are leaving WTMJ for another Milwaukee affiliate after this season. It's something I asked for in this blog over 3 1/2 years ago, and my feelings on the subject have only gotten stronger in time being. Especially since WTMJ was a major factor in the election of Scott Walker, and the subsequent attacks on the City of Madison and the UW in the Age of Fitzwalkerstan. Heck, don't take my word for it that WTMJ is a willing partner to Walker and WisGOP, just ask Reince Priebus.



Needless to say, I found it to be unacceptable that Bucky was helping that poisonous station get listeners (and make no mistake, sports programming gets people to tune their dials to 620, where they keep them on during the day when Sykes, Wagner, and Mercure and spreading their BS). And apparently the reason Bucky won't be on WGOP WTMJ is because Journal Broadcast group wouldn't give UW sports the priority it deserves. Here's part of a letter from Journal Broadcast CEO (and right-wing race-baiting enabler) Steve Wexler explaining this.

I wanted to let you know that we've been in discussions with Learfield Sports, the rights holder for Wisconsin Badgers radio programming. We decided to decline to renew our agreement with Learfield, based on their wish for full clearance of all their programming -- something we are simply unable to do for them. Beginning with the 2014 football season, Learfield will presumably move to a new market affiliate.

Clearing Badgers programming has always been challenging for us because of our commitments to the Green Bay Packers, Milwaukee Brewers and Milwaukee Bucks. We often have to move Badgers games to other stations in the market due to schedule conflicts. Additionally, unlike Packers and Brewers, we're not the rights holder to Wisconsin sports. We are a network affiliate of Learfield, so none of the commercial inventory in their games is available for us to sell to our local advertisers.

The UW rightfully wants one station to be "the home of the Badgers" in Wisconsin's largest media market, and my bet would be AM 920, which already has two Madison-based talk shows (a morning one with Badger announcers Mike Lucas and Matt LePay, and an afternoon one with Mike Heller), and is the backup station for Badger sports when TMJ bumps them for some random Bucks or Brewers game. I'd love for UW Athletics to do the same thing in Madison, where it's on the AM dial at 1310, which broadcasts hateful, anti-Madison programming such as Rush Limbaugh and Icki McKenna during weekdays. They already have an FM affiliate in Madison, and could move the AM part to 1070, which simulcasts the same local sports shows as 920 in Milwaukee, and is also a backup Badger station.

I don't have any illusions that AM620's right-wing daytime garbage was a reason behind Bucky going off of WGOP WTMJ- I know it was about dollars and exclusivity for UW sports. But it's a great side benefit, and this two-time Badger alum would love to see it continue in the Badgers' hometown.

October Wisc jobs good, but overall picture still bad

We finally got the release of both the September and October jobs numbers for Wisconsin today, after a one-month delay due to the federal government's shutdown. And at first glance (the only glance the Walker folks want you to take), the situation sounds really good.

In brief, the estimates show:

Place of residence data: A preliminary seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 6.5 percent in October, down from 6.6 percent in September and the state's lowest seasonally adjusted rate since December 2008. The rate is below the national unemployment rate of 7.3 percent.

Place of work data: Seasonally adjusted private sector job growth of 12,400 from September to October and 41,700 from October 2012 to October 2013; year-to-date private sector job growth of 34,400, the best since 2004.

And all of these stats are true, but they leave out some very important background.

First of all, the unemployment rate dropping has very little to do with people getting jobs. The household survey that determines the unemployment rate only saw a seasonally-adjusted increase of "employed" people of 700. What caused the rate to drop from 6.7% to 6.5% was that a seasonally-adjusted 6,500 Wisconsinites dropped out of the work force, and nearly 33,000 dropped out in raw numbers. If Wisconsin had merely had a normal amount of seasonal dropouts, and had the seasonally-adjusted work force stay the same, then the unemployment rate would have stayed at 6.7% instead of 6.5%. That won't stop the Walker folks from bragging about the state's rate being lower than the rest of the nation (or not mentioning that a majority of the drop since the state's 2009 peak of 9.2% happened under Jim Doyle and the Dems), but it's important to know the context when they say these things, because you can bet our media won't.

And now onto the total jobs numbers. That private sector job growth of 12,400 in October is on the heels of a LOSS of 4,600 private sector jobs in September, and a downward revision of another 1,200 jobs in August. So we're really only 6,600 jobs ahead of where we thought we were 2 months ago, or 3,300 jobs a month. This is actually BELOW the national pace, which would have added 7,800 jobs if you reduce it down to Wisconsin's levels. It means that we've actually seen the Walker private sector jobs gap grow in the last 2 months, and it now stands at just over 51,500.



The release also included the data the Wisconsin DWD sent to the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the Quarterly Census on Employment and Wages (QCEW), aka the "more accurate jobs metric." This report featured the 2nd Quarter of 2013 and compared it with the 2nd Quarter of 2012, and that's worth noting because it includes the dreadful April jobs report, which was chilled by bad weather and awful Walker policies, and also has the bounce-back months of May and June, which saw jobs numbers rise with the thermometer.

The April drop shows clearly in this chart, as the year-over-year growth in that month sunk to less than 12,000 jobs- the worst figure in Walker's tenure in office. The next two months gave some recovery, but as of June 2013, the state was still adding less than 2,000 jobs a month over that year, and the trend was going in the wrong direction.



That graphic should also put to bed another Walker talking point- that the recall elections of 2012 slowed Wisconsin job growth, and that the economy would "take off like a rocket" once Walker was retained. Take a look at the 12 months before the recall, and the 12 months after.

Private sector job growth, Wisconsin QCEW
June 2011- June 2012 (pre-recall) +38,020
June 2012- June 2013 (post-recall) +23,968

That's a slowdown in job growth of 37% in the year after the recall election. So maybe that election did have an effect...just not in the way the Walker folks have tried to sell it.

I do think the next quarter for the QCEW should look better, as the jobs numbers have been generally improving over the last few months (although September's losses show the growth isn't steady). We'll see what the holiday-influenced figures in November and December have to say, as they will probably go a long way toward determining the narrative of "right direction vs. wrong direction" as the 2014 elections near. But with that said, there is little doubt that Wisconsin has been put in the hole over the first 2 1/2 years of Scott Walker's tenure as governor, and the good news we've had recently isn't nearly enough to drag us back to ground level. No matter how much the Walker Admin will try to lie and spin the situation, the overall record is still pretty bad.

More proof of a two-tier society

Time to give you some more Charlie Pierce from this week. Here's an excellent rundown of how screwed up this country's economy is right now, with the accurately titled "WTF is Going on in America?" Pierce brings up that the S&P broke 1,800 and the Dow 16,000 this week, but most people aren't feeling the boom.

For single mother Laurinda Darosa of Dorchester, it has been difficult adjusting to unemployment after a heart operation. Before the cut, she, her 21-year-old daughter, and 11-year-old son relied on $66 in assistance to help them buy food. Now, nearly cut in half, Darosa's monthly stipend is $37, causing her to budget "day by day" for food in a neighborhood where a gallon of milk at Shaw's costs $2.99. "I don't know how I'm going to do it," she said. "Everything is so expensive."

Should have expanded the old investment portfolio when you had the chance.

And, finally, there's an update from the modern heirs to the legacy of commodity traders Scrooge & Marley.

Wal-Mart has been criticized for paying low wages to its 2.2 million employees. Last week, 50 people were arrested after protesting the retailer's pay at a store in Los Angeles. Wal-Mart turned a profit of $15.7 billion last year.

We also found out this week that Wal-Mart is holding a holiday food drive...for their own employees! Of course, this is typical of the Wal-Mart strategy, which involves paying their employees low wages and next to no benefits, which reduces the labor costs as low as possible (and makes the profits as high as possible, which Wall Street likes). In fact, the Wisconsin Department of Human Services says Wal-Mart had more than 3,000 of its employees on BadgerCare between July and September, 2013, more than double any other state employer. If Wal-Mart paid a living wage (or was forced to due to a higher minimum wage), not only might you have some of these gross inequities reduced, it would probably save taxpayer dollars due to fewer workers on Badgercare, along with those workers being more likely to owe income tax.

This low-wage environment helps to explain why inflation is non-existent these days, with the year-over-year rate at 1.01%, and real wages only increasing by 1.3% for the last 12 months (in fact, real wages have DROPPED in 4 of the last 6 months). At the same time, the S&P 500 is up 28% since this time last year (so much for higher capital gains in 2013 being a deterrent).

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the low wage increases and booming stock market are connected. Heck, Wal-Mart spends $7.6 billion a year to buy back its own stock in order to pump up its share price. Needless to say, these practices are a big reason why I don't shop at Wal-Mart, and you shouldn't either.

It is well past time for workers to start taking back a small piece of the gains they have allowed idle investors to get. If we do not stop this cycle of stagnation and cuts for the 99% while the oligarchs thrive, things will get much worse, and much more turbulent. As usual, Pierce sums it up well.

This is not sustainable in viable self-government. It simply is not. Either we change or our democracy does.

Back from da Buff- with more media fails!

Back from a long weekend in Buffalo to see some in-laws. Good trip, and I even went to the same Dave and Buster's that the New York Jets attended on Saturday night. But can't say I take responsibility for the Bills kicking the crap out of the Jets the next day, nor did I have anything to do with this guy's condition at Ralph Wilson Stadium on Sunday.



But there was a lot going on while I've been gone, so I wanted to give a couple of quick links and reactions.

1. The first involves the great Charlie Pierce's rundown of this Sunday's political shows, and he destroyed ABC's This Week for a performance that would embarrass a high school Journalism class. Here's a small example, where Pierce mentions that ABC's Martha Raddatz continually asked Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand about the "disastrous" Obamacare implementation and how Obama could regain the people's trust after it had been "shattered", and Gillibrand discussed people who were getting coverage under Obamacare.

Gillibrand and Raddatz were talking in different realities here. The people who didn't have health care before and can afford it now -- the people in the states where the governors aren't such pig-headed ideologues that they took the Medicaid expansion because FREE MONEY! -- their "trust" is not "shattered." Raddatz is talking about a 15-foot radius around her own green room. There is a difference.

Speaking of pig-headed ideologue governors who obstruct Obamacare, Pierce also mentioned ABC's ridiculous interview with recent author Scott Walker, and it was as much of a puff piece as you'd imagine, with ABC's Jonathan Karl visiting Walker at the Capitol.

WALKER: There are signs out there that have my picture with a scope site on it. There are people who say a good Republican is a dead Republican.

This tunnel connects from across the street.

KARL: The Governor gave us a first ever look at the secret tunnel he used to get in and out of his office during the occupation.

The protesters didn't figure a way to?

WALKER: No.

Brave Sir Scotty! (Precisely what "people" said those things? When?) Ooooo, secret tunnels! And then, the questions. It's a wonder that Walker could stand up under the ferocious interrogation he faced. Anything about not delivering the job numbers he promised? The continuing probe into how he conducted his campaign? The selling off of public lands for private profit? The arrests of elderly people for the crime of singing in their state capitol? The most recent late-night atrocities by the troglodytes in his pet legislature? Nope, Karl didn't have room for that because he wanted -- nay, he needed -- answers to the following.

[KARL:] Governor Walker, for a while, you were the most divisive man in America. What'd you learn from that?

Of course, it's no surprise that Walker chose Jonathan Karl to interview him, since Karl is a known GOP operative masquerading as a journalist, so Walker could count on him not to ask any real questions about his failed policies and lack of morals. I also notice that Scotty is going on the shows of righties Larry Kudlow and Joe Scarborough, but doesn't have time to take up Rachel Maddow's request for a few minutes of discussion. This guy's "Unintimidated?" As Lee Elia would say "My fuckin' ass!"

2. I'm also guessing Kudlow and Scarborough aren't going to ask Scotty about John Doe Part Deux (and have likely been told not to), even though the investigation is clearly heating up. How else do you explain the right-wing oligarchs at Wisconsin Club for Growth revealing to the Wall Street Journal that they have been subpoenaed and their offices. It was the basis for this absurd Murdoch Journal editorial, which first minimized the Milwaukee John Doe investigation, and the six convictions that came from it. The Murdoch boys then tried to give the same failed "persecution" argument from earlier this year that came up with political organizations being investigated by the IRS for ducking taxes.

Perhaps the probe will turn up some nefarious activity that warrants this subpoena monsoon and home raids. But in the meantime the effect is to limit political speech by intimidating these groups from participating in the 2014 campaign. Stifling allies of Mr. Walker would be an enormous in-kind contribution to Democrats. Even if no charges are filed, the subpoenas will have served as a form of speech suppression.

[Eric] O'Keefe [of Wisconsin Club for Growth] told us that the flurry of subpoenas "froze my communications and frightened many allies and vendors of the pro-taxpayer political movement in Wisconsin and across the country." Even if no one is ever convicted of a crime, he says, "the process is the punishment."

OH POOR BABIES! They couldn't raise and shift funds as easily because someone might find out who they were! May I remind you of Lisa Kaiser's excellent expose of Wisconsin Club for Growth and other right-wing groups taking part in a money-laundering scheme during the first two years of Walker's governorship? I think I'll play the world's smallest violin in sympathy, Mr. O'Keefe.

Let me give the righty oligarchs a little tip, if you're scared about people finding out what political activities you're paying for, then you're not doing anything decent. It's why we shouldn't just investigate any coordination, but that we should EXPOSE EVERY DOLLAR that these scumbags donate, and where it is spent on.

There's a whole lot more that broke over the weekend, and is going to break this week, and I'll get to that later this week, now that I'm back in Dairyland through the holidays.

The vast right-wing conspiracy is VERY real

Vital reading on from the Center for Media and Democracy, who have set up a new website at the aptly-named stinktanks.org, exposing the oligarch-funded State Policy Networks, and the many front groups the Kochs and other privatizers use to sneak over their spin onto a lazy media. And it has a special chapter on the right-wing propaganda machine in Wisconsin, following the money to showcase the often-hidden funders of lying rags like MacIver and the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI). The biggest backer of which is the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation.



    It also discusses how the Bradley Foundation is mostly nothing more than WisGOP insiders and money-launderers masquerading as "researchers," with much of the funds flowing from Bradley CEO and 2010 Scott Walker campaign co-chair Michael Greedy Grebe

  

 

   

And that picture doesn't even include Bradley Foundation board member Char-LIE Sykes, or longtime WPRI front men like Chrissy Schneider and Mike Nichols- all three of which have or currently do pull regular paychecks from Journal Communications.

On top of that, I'd also encourage you to read Lisa Kaiser's excellent work in the Shepherd Express tracking the Kochs' money-laundering that has been done in Wisconsin over the last 2 1/2 years. Kaiser starts by looking at the Wisconsin Club for Growth, and tracing the funds back from there.

A Shepherd investigation into Wisconsin Club for Growth’s funding sources found that shadowy national right-wing groups donated to the organization during the recall fight.

They include:

■ Center to Protect Patient Rights: Little is known about this Arizona-based conservative front group headed by the Koch-connected Sean Noble, but, as mentioned above, it donated $225,000 to the Wisconsin Club for Growth in 2011 and Noble’s blog posted flattering messages about Walker, who survived a recall the year after CPPR made its donation.

The organization paid a record-setting fine in California for not disclosing its funders.

■ The Wellspring Committee: National Public Radio and the Center for Responsive Politics recently investigated this dark-money group run by Ann Corkery, which mixes conservative politics and religion. It’s funded right-wing groups such as Americans for Prosperity, the Faith and Freedom Coalition and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce. In 2011, the group sent $400,000 to Wisconsin Club for Growth.

■ Faith and Freedom Coalition: This Georgia-based issue advocacy group is headed by former Christian Coalition chief Ralph Reed and, according to the Center for Media and Democracy, has close ties to the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity. The national Faith and Freedom Coalition gave Wisconsin Club for Growth $60,000 in 2011.

You know, with Scotty making the rounds on talk shows hawking his fiction-filled book, perhaps some enterprising interviewer might bring this up and ask "Is this what you meant when you asked the fake David Koch for some help in February 2011, during the protests?" I'd be interested in seeing Gov Dropout try to explain that one - and explain it during John Doe, Part Deux as well.

So keep these two articles in mind if you ever wonder why right-wing media and politicians all seem to say the same, bubble-worldish things. Because as these articles show, they're probably all getting their strings pulled by the same puppetmasters.

High speed train fail keeps on a-rolling

With Talgo filing a $65.9 million lawsuit last week against the state for breach of contract due to Gov Walker's refusal to build the high-speed rail line between Milwaukee, Madison, and the Twin Cities, let's take a step back and look at what the price tag now stands at due to Scotty's foolhardy decision.

First, let's look at the $31.6 million in state money that was spent in July 2011 to upgrade the same Milwaukee-to-Chicago rail lines that the feds would have paid out if the rail project was allowed to go through.

Then remember the $2.5 million spent by the state to look into another site for the Talgo plant. Which ended up netting Wisconsin absolutely ZERO when Talgo decided to set up its manufacturing facility (and the jobs that went with it) in Rochelle, Illinois, and IDOT decided to buy its new high-speed rail trains from that facility.

And remember that we're paying $9 million in additional state money in 2011-2013 to operate the Milwaukee-Chicago Hiawatha line (as shown in item 5 under "Local Transportation Assistance" near the bottom of page 15), and $7.2 million more in state money to subsidize the Chicago-Milwaukee routes over the next two years because the Governor decided to divert $8.8 million in federal aid from passenger rail (as shown in item 6 under "Local Transportation Assistance" near the bottom of page 18 in this PDF), and instead send it instead to highways. You may recall that the feds offered to take care of up to 90% of the subsidy of operating this line if the high-speed rail had been allowed to go through. But NOOOOO, working with the Obama Administration just wouldn't do with the WisGOP saboteurs, so the state is slated to spend about an extra $15 million as a result of this decision.

So from these 3 items alone we get

Cost of upgraded rail lines $31.6 million
Study new facility site, get nothing as a result $2.5 million
Extra costs to subsidize current passenger rail $15 million
Talgo suit $65.9 million

POSSIBLE TOTAL COST to Wisc. taxpayers- $115 million
Total Wisconsin share of stimulus rail- $14.6 million (1.8% of $810 million)
Possible extra cost to Wisc. taxpayers- $100.4 million

I'm not even adding in the lost benefits of jobs or the added service that we've never received, along with that possible $100 million price tag. Instead of having people in Madison and the western suburbs of Milwaukee boarding trains to get to Chicago for the upcoming holiday season, they'll have few options other than driving on congested and potentially snowy roads, due to Walker's high-speed fail. And if Walker's backers in the 262 want to go to Chitown and places further south in the next 2-3 years, they'll have to deal the extra headache of major construction due to the Zoo Interchange and I-94 projects (along with the extra billions of borrowing the state is taking on for those years). Gee, you think those guys are going to wish they had another option of transportation they could take?

Helluva job there, Scotty. I'm sure there are other extra costs that I didn't even hit on, but those numbers alone should be grounds to get these clowns fired, let alone all the other corruption and mismanagement we've seen in the last 3 years.