Governor Walker's War on Christmas

Fox News can't spend too much time taking Democratic Governors to task for calling evergreens in Capitol rotundas "Holiday Trees." Fox hashtags these pieces "War on Christmas."

Here is the Governor's and First Lady's Christmas message:



What's with this "Blessings of the Season" stuff? I am willing to bet the Gov isn't accused by Fox of waging War on Christmas.

The two Walker kids look just about as excited about this video project as my sons do when asked to gather for the annual Christmas, er, Blessed Season Picture.

Something Completely Different

A little Tchaikovsky Christmas favorite from the Basilica of Saint Stephen in Bologna, Italy



Thanks to Andrew Sullivan's Blog, The Dish.

A Great Navy Tradition Proudly Observed

 First Kiss





Many Navy ships raffle off the right to be the first sailor down the brow to kiss a loved one upon return to the ship's homeport. When the USS Oak Hill (LSD-51) docked in Little Creek, Virginia today, the winner of the raffle kissed her partner. Without fear of reprisal.  As reported by the Associated Press:

Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta of Placerville, Calif., descended from the USS Oak Hill amphibious landing ship and shared a quick kiss with her partner, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell of Los Angeles. The crowd screamed and waved flags around them.

Both women, ages 22 and 23 respectively, are fire controlmen in the Navy. They met at training school and have been dating for two years.

Navy officials said it was the first time on record that a same-sex couple was chosen to kiss first upon a ship's return. Sailors and their loved ones bought $1 raffle tickets for the opportunity. Gaeta said she bought $50 of tickets. The Navy said the money would be used to host a Christmas party for the children of sailors.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Badgers v. Illini. We're behind in the Job Creation Contest Governor Walker declared.

Versus

Oh no.  Not another post on jobs!

I'll make it short.  Here is the Wisconsin November Job Report.  Here is the Illinois November Job Report.  Governor Walker threw down on Governor Quinn earlier this year over how his budgetary reforms were setting Wisconsin up to outpace Illinois in job creation.

Here are the facts:

Illinois population in 2010 census - 12,830,632

Wisconsin population in 2010 census - 5,686,986

Illinois population is 2.26 times the population of the Badger State.

Total Non-Farm Job creation in Illinois over the last 12 months - 57,000
Total Non-Farm Job creation in Wisconsin over the last 12 months - 4,500

Illinois created 12.66 times as many non-farm jobs.

Total Private Sector Non-Farm Jobs created in Illinois over the last 12 months - 66,600

Total Private Sector Non-Farm Jobs created in Wisconsin over the last 12 months- 16,600

Illinois created 4 times as many Private Sector Non-Farm Jobs as Wisconsin.

The difference between the Total Non Farm Jobs ratio and the Total Private Sector Non-Farm Jobs ratio results from the fact that Wisconsin has shed government jobs at a faster rate than Illinois. You might think that is a good thing, unless you were an owner of a grocery store, or a plumbing company, or an appliance store, or frankly any kind of business that depends on consumers making decent wages spending money with your business.  In that case you probably don't care who signs the consumers' paychecks.

Newt or Supervillain?

 Newton Leroy Gingrich

 Baroness Von Gunther






Some very clever person has thought up an on-line ten-question test to see if you can distinguish whether a particular earth-shaking idea "comes from an indestructible megalomaniac hell-bent on ruling the world, or from a fictional supervillain."

The introduction to the game:

You already knew he was an academic, a family man, and an all around great guy. But did you know that Newt Gingrich also has the potential to be one of history's great supervillains? Find out now if you can tell the difference between a Newt Big Idea and a scheme from your favorite evildoer!

Here is one of the ideas:

Idea: Deliberately allow terrorists to commit an attack on one's own country in order to show the people how much they need their leader.

Find the answer to who thought up this idea and the complete test here.

Bureau of Labor Statistics Says Wisconsin Job Creation Performance Worst in the U.S. in October 2011

 Is Wisconsin Effectively Open For Business?





Governor Walker promised to run his administration like a business: lean, efficient, result-oriented and based on measurable performance data.  His core metric was to be job creation in the private sector.  As his 2010 campaign's website stated:

One of the keys to the future of our state’s economy is setting and meeting goals. For too long, politicians and bureaucrats have taken the state’s economy for granted and delayed action until a business was on the verge of declaring bankruptcy or moving to a new state. Instead of reacting to each crisis as it comes, I will develop strategies for creating 250,000 new jobs and 10,000 new businesses by 2015.

These goals will guide every decision made by my administration; every initiative that’s undertaken and every program that’s administered will be examined for its effect on jobs. Every decision must be considered in the context of what it means for job creation and economic recovery.

I posted yesterday and previously about the fact that the Wisconsin job creation numbers have been dismal.  Wisconsin DWD Secretary Reggie Newson issued a press release on Thursday attacking the job reporting requirements of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), claiming that the monthly preliminary numbers for Wisconsin had been revised significantly in the month following their initial release, and that the preliminary numbers tended to make Wisconsin's job creation curve look unduly flat:

“The monthly revisions show a much steadier trajectory with gains being higher and losses being much lower than the BLS’ initial reports. While there certainly is more progress to be made, we are moving Wisconsin in the right direction and laying the groundwork for the private sector to create jobs.”

I wondered what had inspired this attack on a national data system that seemed to be working quite well back in April, May and June when the Governor appeared to be on track to meet his 250,000 new private sector jobs promise.  So I went to the BLS monthly report released on all 50 states' performance in October that was released on November 22, 2011.  There I found that the BLS had singled out Wisconsin as being the only state in the country with a statistically significant decline in employment during October:

In October, non-farm payroll employment increased in 39 states and the District of Columbia, and decreased in 11 states. The largest over-the-month increases in employment occurred in Illinois (+30,000) and California (+25,700). The largest over-the-month decrease in employment occurred in Wisconsin (-9,700), followed by New York (-8,300) and Minnesota (-6,100). Delaware experienced the largest over-the-month percentage increase in employment (+1.0 percent), followed by North Dakota (+0.7 percent) and Oklahoma (+0.6 percent). Wisconsin experienced the largest over-the-month percentage decline in employment (-0.4 percent), followed by Maine, Rhode Island, and Wyoming (-0.3 percent each). 

Here is Table C from the report that details states with statistically significant increases or decreases in employment between September and October 2011:



The change detailed by this report of BLS on October job figures has now been followed by a month where the job losses in Wisconsin are even direr.  Wisconsin DWD reported losing 11,700 non-farm private sector jobs and 2,900 government jobs in November.

If the state government is going to be run like a business, it is time for a new plan to be circulated by the CEO that explains why we are seeing such poor results and lays out a new path for achieving the four year plan.  Think of the state citizens as the board of directors of the business.  It is time for the board to be approached by the CEO in a proactive way explaining either why we are seeing delayed results from the current business model, or why that model is going to be replaced by a different one that will show better results.

Governor Walker's [Insert adjective here] Job Creation Numbers. Suggestions: doleful, sad, lugubrious, dismal, bleak (Keep it Clean!)

The November job numbers were released by the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development last Thursday and job creation in Wisconsin continues to be anemic.  Since the Walker administration and the GOP controlled legislature took charge in January, non-farm private sector jobs have risen by 16,300, while government jobs have fallen by 12,400.  Total workers employed have risen by 14,400, which means that if the agriculture sector had not shown some modest job growth since December, the job picture would be even bleaker. At the current rate of private job creation, the Governor will not even meet one-third of his promise.  The state is currently on track to create 71,000 jobs by the currently scheduled end of the Governor's first term.   His campaign promise was to create 250,000 new private sector jobs by January 2015.

What is more interesting than the numbers themselves is the manner in which they were reported in DWD Secretary Reggie Newson's press release.  (Newson is the third secretary of DWD appointed in the last ten months.  Talk about a tough job to hold.)  

The press release contained Newson's attack on the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for forcing the state to release monthly preliminary data that were subject to significant revision in the following month:

“October was the fifth straight month and the eighth month this year in which the federal government overestimated the preliminary job loss numbers or underestimated job gains for Wisconsin,” Secretary Newson said. “I am particularly concerned by the disparity in the October preliminary numbers, which were off by 7,300 for total jobs and 7,900 for private-sector jobs. These unreliable employment statistics out of Washington misinform the public and create unnecessary anxiety for job seekers and job creators about the shape of our state’s economy.”

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Wisconsin’s revised numbers show the state lost 2,400 jobs in October, roughly a 75 percent correction from their initial estimate of 9,700 jobs. Meanwhile, Wisconsin added 11,000 jobs in June, but BLS initially underestimated that number by roughly 1,500 jobs.

“The most troubling thing to me is the effects these initial estimates have on the perception of Wisconsin’s workforce,” continued Secretary Newson. “The monthly revisions show a much steadier trajectory with gains being higher and losses being much lower than the BLS’ initial reports. While there certainly is more progress to be made, we are moving Wisconsin in the right direction and laying the groundwork for the private sector to create jobs.”

Under an ongoing annual contract between the state and BLS, the monthly employment estimates are generated from a survey of 4 percent of Wisconsin employers. The survey data are transmitted to Washington, where BLS generates the preliminary estimates and sends the numbers to Wisconsin to publish. The BLS revises the estimates as additional data comes in, but the revisions aren’t published until the following month. The BLS’ November preliminary estimates for Wisconsin indicate a decrease in total jobs by 14,600 on a seasonally adjusted basis.

“We are required by the federal government to release its preliminary numbers on a monthly basis, even though the numbers can be off by as many as 9,400 jobs and still be considered by BLS to be within an acceptable margin of error,” Secretary Newson continued. “This margin of error may be fine for Washington, but not here in Wisconsin. In order to address the serious needs of Wisconsin’s workforce, our state needs an accurate jobs reporting system that allows us to understand the trends without unnecessarily alarming the state’s job seekers and job creators.”

So there you have it.   The perception of the Governor's problem in job creation is the fault of the Feds!

But when you unpack what Secretary Newson is saying, his criticisms are really just a effort to divert attention from the fact that Wisconsin's job recovery has stalled out after a relatively quick start in the first several months of the Walker administration. “The monthly revisions show a much steadier trajectory with gains being higher and losses being much lower than the BLS’ initial reports. While there certainly is more progress to be made, we are moving Wisconsin in the right direction and laying the groundwork for the private sector to create jobs.”    

The "laying the groundwork" reference has to be seen as an admission that job creation in the first year of the Walker administration has been crummy. And even if one uses the final data for October, rather than the preliminary data for November of this year, the Governor stands to fall short of his job creation promise by one-half, creating only 134,000 new jobs in the private sector.

Rest in Peace, Colonel Potter

Harry Morgan died in his sleep today in Brentwood, California at age 96. Here is one of his more memorable scenes from Mash:

Newt a Marxist?

 Karl Marx






In an op-ed piece published last Friday in the Washington Post, conservative columnist George Will, evaluated the candidacies of Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, and found both men sorely lacking as presidential candidates.  Romney is dismissed as a modern day John Dewey, smooth and credentialed, but someone nobody will come to like in the general election.  Romney is also described by Will as a conservative of convenience.

Far more scorn is heaped on Gingrich.  Here are the money quotes:

Gingrich, however, embodies the vanity and rapacity that make modern Washington repulsive. And there is his anti-conservative confidence that he has a comprehensive explanation of, and plan to perfect, everything.

There is almost artistic vulgarity in Gingrich’s unrepented role as a hired larynx for interests profiting from such government follies as ethanol and cheap mortgages. His Olympian sense of exemption from standards and logic allowed him, fresh from pocketing $1.6 million from Freddie Mac (for services as a “historian”), to say, “If you want to put people in jail,” look at “the politicians who profited from” Washington’s environment.

His temperament — intellectual hubris distilled — makes him blown about by gusts of enthusiasm for intellectual fads, from 1990s futurism to “Lean Six Sigma” today. On Election Eve 1994, he said a disturbed South Carolina mother drowning her children “vividly reminds” Americans “how sick the society is getting, and how much we need to change things. . . . The only way you get change is to vote Republican.” Compare this grotesque opportunism — tarted up as sociology — with his devious recasting of it in a letter to the Nov. 18, 1994, Wall Street Journal (http://bit.ly/vFbjAk). And remember his recent swoon over the theory that “Kenyan, anti-colonial” thinking explains Barack Obama.

Gingrich, who would have made a marvelous Marxist, believes everything is related to everything else and only he understands how.  Conservatism, in contrast, is both cause and effect of modesty about understanding society’s complexities, controlling its trajectory and improving upon its spontaneous order. Conservatism inoculates against the hubristic volatility that Gingrich exemplifies and Genesis deplores: “Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.”

Romney might not be a Dewey. Gingrich might stop being (as Churchill said of John Foster Dulles) a bull who carries his own china shop around with him. But both are too risky to anoint today.

It is clear that Will thinks Huntsman is the best GOP candidate, with which I whole-heartily agree.

"We have awakened a Sleeping Giant" - Admiral Yamamoto

 December 7, 1941








Today's NYTimes Op Ed page had an interesting piece for Pearl Harbor Day on the unsuccessful efforts by the architect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, to dissuade his country from war against the United States in 1941.

Excerpts from the Op Ed piece by Ian Toll:

During the Second World War and for years afterward, Americans despised Yamamoto as an archvillain, the perpetrator of an ignoble sneak attack, a personification of “Oriental treachery.” Time magazine published his cartoon likeness on its Dec. 22, 1941, cover — sinister, glowering, dusky yellow complexion — with the headline “Japan’s Aggressor.” He was said to have boasted that he would “dictate terms of peace in the White House.”

Yamamoto made no such boast — the quote was taken out of context from a private letter in which he had made precisely the opposite point. He could not imagine an end to the war short of his dictating terms in the White House, he wrote — and since Japan could not hope to conquer the United States, that outcome was inconceivable.  . . .

In the course of his naval career, he traveled widely through the United States and Europe, learning enough English — mostly during a two-year stint at Harvard soon after World War I — to read books and newspapers and carry on halting conversations. He read several biographies of Lincoln, whom he admired as a man born into poverty who rose to become a “champion” of “human freedom.”

From 1926 to 1928 he served as naval attaché in Washington; while in America, he journeyed alone across the country, paying his way with his own meager salary, stretching his budget by staying in cheap hotels and skipping meals. His travels revealed the growing power of the American industrial machine. “Anyone who has seen the auto factories in Detroit and the oil fields in Texas,” he would later remark, “knows that Japan lacks the national power for a naval race with America.” . . .

And yet even in the final weeks of peace, Yamamoto continued to urge that the wiser course was not to fight the United States at all. “We must not start a war with so little a chance of success,” he told Admiral Nagano. He recommended abrogating the Tripartite Pact and pulling Japanese troops out of China. Finally, he hoped that the emperor would intervene with a “sacred decision” against war. But the emperor remained silent.

On Dec. 7, 1941, all eight battleships of the Pacific Fleet were knocked out of action in the first half hour of the conflict. More than 180 American planes were destroyed, mostly on the ground, representing about two-thirds of the total American military aircraft in the Pacific theater. The Japanese carriers escaped with the loss of just 29 planes.

The Japanese people exulted, and Yamamoto was lifted in their eyes to the status of a demigod. Now he could dictate his wishes to the Tokyo admirals, and would continue to do so until his death in April 1943, when American fighters shot down his aircraft in the South Pacific. . . .

But perhaps the most important part of Yamamoto’s legacy was not his naval career at all, but the part he played in the boisterous politics of prewar Japan. He was one of the few Japanese leaders of his generation who found the moral courage to tell the truth — that waging war against the United States would invite a national catastrophe. As Japan lay in ashes after 1945, his countrymen would remember his determined exertions to stop the slide toward war. In a sense, Isoroku Yamamoto was vindicated by Japan’s defeat.

Yamamoto intuitively knew that sneak attacks often end up poorly for the aggressor because of the intense passions and mobilizations they engender.  Yamamoto knew that the Pearl Harbor attack really had to deliver a knock-out punch, or it would go horribly wrong.  You can see this dynamic playing out today at card tables all across the state.  As a newly installed ruling party in 2011, the Republicans in Wisconsin chose to govern in juggernaut fashion, including their infamous "dropping of the bomb" on public employees and school teachers:

"This is an exciting time. This is — you know, I told my cabinet, I had a dinner the Sunday, or excuse me, the Monday right after the 6th. Came home from the Super Bowl where the Packers won, and that Monday night I had all of my cabinet over to the residence for dinner. Talked about what we were gonna do, how we were gonna do it. We’d already kinda built plans up, but it was kind of the last hurrah before we dropped the bomb. And I stood up and I pulled out a picture of Ronald Reagan, and I said, you know, this may seem a little melodramatic, but 30 years ago, Ronald Reagan, whose 100th birthday we just celebrated the day before, had one of the most defining moments of his political career, not just his presidency, when he fired the air-traffic controllers."

February 22, 2011, Governor Walker speaking by telephone with blogger Ian Murphy, a person he thought was David Koch.  Full transcript here.

Sunk Near the Bottom of the Barrel - Wisconsin Job Creation. Thank God for Indiana, Georgia, Missouri, Delaware, Rhode Island and Arkansas!

The Governor, back in April, having great fun at Illinois' expense.





Today, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics issued  the October 2011 figures for job creation by states and large metropolitan areas.    The results are here.   Wisconsin ranks seventh from the bottom of the fifty-state barrel in job creation over the one-year period, October 2010 to October 2011.  We beat only the six sad states mentioned in the header above.

During that one year period, Wisconsin saw 5,500 new non-farm jobs created.   That represented an increase in employment in Wisconsin of two-tenths (0.2%) of a percent.  By contrast, Minnesota increased its non-farm jobs by 0.7%, Iowa by 0.9%, and Michigan by 1.2%. 

And what about our fourth border state?  Remember the Governor erecting the "Open For Business" signs at the Illinois border back in April, while calling out Governor Quinn by name as a vicious tax and spending profligate who could be counted on to drive Illinois businesses into our welcoming arms?  At the time, I talked about it here, and speculated that the stunt might come back to haunt the Governor.  Well, while we increased our non-farm employment in Wisconsin by 5,500 jobs or 0.2%, Illinois increased its labor force by 62,000 jobs or by 1.1%.  Maybe those "Open for Business" signs needed some flashing neon lights.

Gingrich Soars, Romney and Cain Drop in Gallup Favorability Index

In polling data released by the Gallup Polling organization yesterday, Newt Gingrich has soared into the lead in terms of GOP positivity rating.  This measures the difference between the percentage of GOP voters that rate a candidate as "strongly favorable"  and those that rate him or her as "strongly unfavorable."

Three other Republican candidates -- Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Herman Cain -- have led or been tied for the lead in the Positive Intensity Score rankings at times this year, with scores well into the 20-point range. All have now dropped back into the single digits.  The results for Cain were obtained before the thirteen year affair allegations broke.

Jon Huntsman, a worthy candidate on the right, scores a minus 2 on this index.  The GOP really has become the party of  zealots.

Aussi, Aussi, Aussi, Oi, Oi, Oi !!!!

A great ad from Down Under:

Welcome Home!

A nice series of homecomings for servicemen and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan!

Frum says Republican Party is Certifiably Coo-Coo

 David Frum




In Sunday's New York Magazine, David Frum presents a compelling argument that today's GOP is losing touch with reality.  Frum is a former speech writer for George W. Bush, conservative commentator and a life-long Republican.  As he explains in the article, his former conservative friends believe he is the one who is now crazy.  Read his article and decide for yourself if he sounds crazy. 

Money Quotes:

This past summer, the GOP nearly forced America to the verge of default just to score a point in a budget debate. In the throes of the worst economic crisis since the Depression, Republican politicians demand massive budget cuts and shrug off the concerns of the unemployed. In the face of evidence of dwindling upward mobility and long-stagnating middle-class wages, my party’s economic ideas sometimes seem to have shrunk to just one: more tax cuts for the very highest earners. When I entered Republican politics, during an earlier period of malaise, in the late seventies and early eighties, the movement got most of the big questions—crime, inflation, the Cold War—right. This time, the party is getting the big questions disastrously wrong.  . . .

It was not so long ago that Texas governor Bush denounced attempts to cut the earned-income tax credit as “balancing the budget on the backs of the poor.” By 2011, Republican commentators were noisily complaining that the poorer half of society are “lucky duckies” because the EITC offsets their federal tax obligations—or because the recession had left them with such meager incomes that they had no tax to pay in the first place. In 2000, candidate Bush routinely invoked “churches, synagogues, and mosques.” By 2010, prominent Republicans were denouncing the construction of a mosque in lower Manhattan as an outrageous insult. In 2003, President Bush and a Republican majority in Congress enacted a new ­prescription-drug program in Medicare. By 2011, all but four Republicans in the House and five in the Senate were voting to withdraw the Medicare guarantee from everybody under age 55. Today, the Fed’s pushing down interest rates in hopes of igniting economic growth is close to treason, according to Governor Rick Perry, coyly seconded by The Wall Street Journal. In 2000, the same policy qualified Alan Greenspan as the “greatest central banker in the history of the world,” according to Perry’s mentor, Senator Phil Gramm. Today, health reform that combines regulation of private insurance, individual mandates, and subsidies for those who need them is considered unconstitutional and an open invitation to “death panels.” A dozen years ago, a very similar reform was the Senate Republican alternative to Hillarycare. Today, stimulative fiscal policy that includes tax cuts for almost every American is “socialism.” In 2001, stimulative fiscal policy that included tax cuts for rather fewer Americans was an economic­-recovery program. . . .

The Bush years cannot be repudiated, but the memory of them can be discarded to make way for a new and more radical ideology, assembled from bits of the old GOP platform that were once sublimated by the party elites but now roam the land freely: ultra-libertarianism, crank monetary theories, populist fury, and paranoid visions of a Democratic Party controlled by ACORN and the New Black Panthers. For the past three years, the media have praised the enthusiasm and energy the tea party has brought to the GOP. Yet it’s telling that that movement has failed time and again to produce even a remotely credible candidate for president. Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich: The list of tea-party candidates reads like the early history of the U.S. space program, a series of humiliating fizzles and explosions that never achieved liftoff.

Much as viewers tune in to American Idol to laugh at the inept, borderline dysfunctional early auditions, these tea-party champions provide a ghoulish type of news entertainment each time they reveal that they know nothing about public affairs and have never attempted to learn. But Cain’s gaffe on Libya or Perry’s brain freeze on the Department of Energy are not only indicators of bad leadership. They are indicators of a crisis of followership. The tea party never demanded knowledge or concern for governance, and so of course it never got them. . . .

But the thought leaders on talk radio and Fox do more than shape opinion. Backed by their own wing of the book-publishing industry and supported by think tanks that increasingly function as public-relations agencies, conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics. Outside this alternative reality, the United States is a country dominated by a strong Christian religiosity. Within it, Christians are a persecuted minority. Outside the system, President Obama—whatever his policy ­errors—is a figure of imposing intellect and dignity. Within the system, he’s a pitiful nothing, unable to speak without a teleprompter, an affirmative-action ­phony doomed to inevitable defeat. Outside the system, social scientists worry that the U.S. is hardening into one of the most rigid class societies in the Western world, in which the children of the poor have less chance of escape than in France, Germany, or even England. Inside the system, the U.S. remains (to borrow the words of Senator Marco Rubio) “the only place in the world where it doesn’t matter who your parents were or where you came from.”  . . .

Yet, for the most part, these Republican billionaires are not acting cynically. They watch Fox News too, and they’re gripped by the same apocalyptic fears as the Republican base. In funding the tea-party movement, they are ­actually acting against their own longer-term interests, for it is the richest who have the most interest in political stability, which depends upon broad societal agreement that the existing distribution of rewards is fair and reasonable. If the social order comes to seem unjust to large numbers of people, what happens next will make Occupy Wall Street look like a street fair.  . . .

It’s the job of conservatives in this crisis to show a better way. But it’s one thing to point out (accurately) that President Obama’s stimulus plan was mostly a compilation of antique Democratic wish lists, and quite another to argue that the correct response to the worst collapse since the thirties is to wait for the economy to get better on its own. It’s one thing to worry (wisely) about the long-term trend in government spending, and another to demand big, immediate cuts when 25 million are out of full-time work and the government can borrow for ten years at 2 percent. 

Something Completely Different

This kid better get a grip or she is going to be unhappy for a long time.



Especially if Zygi unloads the team and they move.

"The Sun Doesn't Shine on the Same Dog's Behind Everyday"

There is an adage in South Carolina: "The sun doesn't shine on the same dog's behind everyday."  If things aren't going well for you, wait a spell, do good work, and count on an uptick in fortune down the road.  (Unless your name is Huntsman or Santorum.)

The ups and downs of the GOP Presidential race illustrate this notion.  Here is a graph of GOP presidential candidate polling numbers that have been compiled by Real Clear Politics in its Poll of Polls average.  The polls captured in the average are: Fox News, CNN, Pew Research, Public Policy Polling (PPP) and McClatchey Marist.  The far right of the graph represents November 14, just 4 days ago.

One interesting thing is how with each new meteoric rise by the "new new" conservative darling, in order, Bachmann, Perry, Cain, Gingrich,  Governor Romney's numbers head south only to rise again when the new new candidate's numbers come back to earth.   Cain is now on his way down, with Gingrich replacing him as the conservative darling.  The PPP polling has Gingrich at 28 %, Cain at 25% and Romney droppng down to 18%.   Have these voters forgotten that Gingrich criticized the proposed House GOP budget as "Right Wing Social Engineering."  I bet our own Paul Ryan hasn't forgotten that.

GAB has Concern over Recall Petition Fraud

 Kevin Kennedy, Director of Wisconsin's Government
Accountability Board




Well before the current recall petition drive kicked off, I had concern over conservative "trolls" circulating recall petitions and then tearing them up. We already have seen some evidence of fraud with respect to the GOP supporter who filed as a recall committee eleven days before the official petition effort was started at 12:01 AM on Tuesday by A United Wisconsin.  While this person may have registered just to trigger an early start to the campaign financing solicitations by the governor, it might have lead to petitions being circulated that were never intended to be filed with the Government Accountability Board (GAB).

The GAB is also concerned about this kind of misconduct.  It issued a statement today reminding citizens that it is a crime to act fraudulently with respect to the circulation of a recall petition.  It is a Class I felony to destroy a recall petition or engage in fraud with respect to a recall petition.  The penalty is potentially  3 and a half years incarceration and a $10,000 fine.   It is worth reading the statement from the GAB, which is linked above.

I have not yet signed a petition, but when I do, I intend to ask the circulator to show me a Wisconsin driver's license and tell me the organization he is circulating for, so that if I care to (and I probably won't), I can try to confirm that a petition with my name made its way to the GAB.  If someone is reluctant to comply with such a step, then I probably won't sign, and wait for another opportunity or circulate a United Wisconsin petition myself.

The GAB manual for recalls indicates that there is no issue of invalidating the signature of an elector who has signed more than one petition for the same recall, and only the second or subsequent signatures are invalid, not the first one encountered by the filing officer.  Still, who wants to be worrying about whether taking the anti-troll precaution of signing multiple petitions will, in and of itself, be viewed as criminal.  I have an email into the GAB and will report on this issue in a later blog.

Presumably United Wisconsin is using Excel Spread sheets that can be merged and sorted and arranged by alpha sort to detect multiple signatures before the petitions go into the GAB.  By having the circulator fill out an excel spreadsheet that is submitted to United Wisconsin with the circulator's executed petitions, this should be easy to track, so long as the spread sheet also lists as to each signer the number assigned to the specific petition or the circulator's name, and United Wisconsin segregates the petitions by number or circulator.  Smarter people than me are undoubtedly organizing the recall drive, so this is presumably taking place already.

Governor and Legislature Trying to Rig Recall Elections?

 John Nichols





John Nichols, who last I saw squiring Susan Sarandon around the square during the late unpleasantness earlier this year, has called out the Governor and the Legislature for attempting to neuter and control what is supposedly a non-partisan adminstrative agency, the Government Accountability Board.  He published an article in the on-line edition of The Nation on Wednesday.

Money Quotes:

In the latest of a series of desperate moves by Walker and his backers, Republican legislator moved Tuesday to give the embattled governor veto power over decisions about the recall election he is likely to face next spring.

The Republican-led Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules has ordered the state’s Government Accountability Board—an independent agency that oversees elections in Wisconsin—to submit decisions regarding key voting-rights issues to a formal rule-making process that gives Governor Walker and Republican legislative leaders the ability to reject rule changes made by the GAB.

Critics warn that this gives Walker the power to dictate how the GAB runs elections—including a new election that would be scheduled if opponents of the governor succeed in filing 540,000 valid signatures on recall petitions. That’s because, under an executive order the governor recently issued, he now has the authority to veto newly created administrative rules—if they are formally promulgated. The decision by the Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules, which was made in a party-line vote Tuesday, requires the formalizing of the rules in a manner that gives the final say to the governor, as opposed to the independent board that is supposed to set election rules and oversee voting.

“What we’re doing here is we’re neutering the GAB,” complained state Senator Fred Risser, the Madison Democrat who is the senior member of the legislature.

The assault on the GAB won’t necessarily prevent a recall election. The state’s constitution sets the basic outlines for the process of recalling elected officials. But could make things harder for those promoting the recall and for those—especially students—who want to vote in the election.

That may explain why Walker’s legislative allies are moving to give the governor the authority to erect roadblocks to the recall.

The Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules on Tuesday ordered the GAB to formalize three decisions, including:
1. a determination allowing technical college IDs to count as college IDs under the photo ID for voting law
2. a determination that it is acceptable to use stickers to update college ID addresses
3. a determination that it is appropriate to electronically circulate recall and nomination papers.

It is the requirement that the board formalize their decisions through the rule-making process that will give Walker and his allies the ability to formally accept or reject rule changes. That gives them veto power with regard to how elections are organized and run.

Whoa Nelly! No way to Spin the Wisconsin Job Numbers

Yesterday I noted that the Governor had  stated on Tuesday that he expected to be judged in the recall process and in any recall election in 2012 on whether he was making good progress on his job creation promise.

Today's data from DWD was nothing short of abysmal.  Below is a spreadsheet showing that Wisconsin lost 9,300 private sector jobs in October, including 2,200 construction jobs, 3,400 manufacturing jobs, and 400 government jobs.  While Wisconsin lost 9,300 jobs, the United States added 80,000.

The total number of private sector jobs that Wisconsin has added since December 2010, the last month of the Doyle administration, is 20,100.  Divide that by ten months and you have 2,010 jobs having been added per month on average.  Multiply 2,010 by the 48 months covered by the Governor's job creation promise and he currently stands to fall short on his promise by well over 150,000 job.  This can't be very pleasant news for the Walker administration as the recall petition effort is ramping up. 

The Oracle of Kenwood

 The Obamas' House in the Kenwood Neighborhood of Chicago, just north of the University of Chicago.




After watching far too many mind-numbing GOP presidential debates, I have a real concern about the ability of the Republican nominee to govern if he or she is elected President.  (I would have just used "he" since Bachmann is kaput; but, hey, this is Madison and you have to be PC.)  With the exception of President Obama ordering the operation that lead to the killing of OBL, I don't know that I have caught a single statement by any of the GOP candidates that recognizes any good that has come from the policies of the Obama administration.  Essentially, every policy position that has issued from these mostly vapid candidates (I exclude the two Mormons) seems to be based on taking an approach which is the exact opposite of the president's on every issue and policy initiative. 

So this leaves me wondering and concerned.  How will the new president make decisions without having the benefit of an absolutist anti-Obama policy orientation?   Will the new president's advisers sit around saying to themselves "WWOD?" and then recommend the opposite approach to a President Gingrich?  Will they war game international crises with one team assigned to play the role of the former Obama administration so they can formulate the strategy for a President Cain?  Or perhaps they can arrange for a hotline from the Oval Office to the Obama residence in Chicago and just check in with him on what he would do if he were still in office?   Obviously, one problem with this last approach is the possibility that the former president will be in a mischievous mood when he gets the call.

Gov Doubles Down on Job Creation Promise

In response to the spate of news stories on the recall effort kicking off ("pajama parties," "march past Governor's home," "humble start of A United Wisconsin," etc.) the Governor "doubled down" on his job creation promise. Speaking yesterday Governor Walker said:

"We're going to be judged, whether it's in 2012 or 2014, on what we're doing on jobs and reform, I don't think it changes what I focus on day-to-day."

So the Governor is expecting (perhaps even wanting) to be judged in the recall effort by whether he is delivering on his 250,000 new jobs promise.  Tomorrow is the scheduled release date for the Department of Workforce Development's October job creation numbers.  So far the job creation results under the Governor's public sector collective bargaining reforms have been tepid at best.  Tomorrow at noon we should have a new snapshot as to whether the Governor has been delivering or not on his job creation promise.

The September job numbers indicated that the Governor is currently on a pace to fall considerably short of his 250,000 new private sector job promise, perhaps by as much as 50%.

"Millions for Defense, But Not a Penny for Tribute!"

 The political debate on the best ways of addressing the national debt will intensify as we see the results later this month from the Congressional Super Committee and the 2012 election draws closer. If the Super Committee fails to produce a recommendation that passes Congress on an up or down vote, no filibusters or amendments allowed, this will be a trigger producing automatic cuts of 1.2 trillion dollars in federal defense and domestic spending over the next ten years. (Entitlement programs such as social security, medicare and medicaid will not be subject to these cuts.)

Even if the automatic spending cuts are not triggered, future budget deals are likely to propose some substantial cuts in defense spending. To put the current level of U.S. Defense spending into context, here is data from the the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) database regarding world-wide 2009 defense spending:

So the United States, which is annually spending some $2,000 for every man, woman and child in our country on defense, spends more in total than the next 19 largest spending nations combined.

Here is a graph on 2010 defense spending, again based on SIPRI data, that shows the defense spending for the top seven defense spending nations in the world:

("Millions for Defense, but Not a Penny for Tribute")

Herman has an "Ooops" Moment

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's editorial board sat down with Herman Cain yesterday for a interview and put the interview on-line. Here is the Herminator on how he would have handled the Libyan civil war differently. I think?

Play him off, Keyboard Cat!

Even Keyboard Cat can see it's time to play him off the stage.

Classiest Politicians in America - Installment No. 11 - The Anti-Romney

Joe Walsh is a Tea Party darling and a first term Republican congressman from Illinois. Sunday he had a constituent town hall meeting in Gurnee, Illinois. Here is a portion of it:



Walsh is a self-proclaimed fiscal hawk that led the GOP Freshmen "No Compromise" movement and voted against the debt limit compromise that kept the US from defaulting back in August.  He is also a guy who lost his condo to foreclosure in 2009 and has been sued for $117,000 in back child support.  Just the right guy for lecturing the President and the GOP leadership on getting the country's fiscal house in order.  

This guy may a bright future somewhere, but it is not in Congress.  Maybe as a Fox analyst?  Hopefully that will lead to poor Mrs.Walsh getting paid.

Rick Perry's campaign ended tonight. He likely doesn't know it yet, but it did.

From tonight's GOP debate in Rochester, Michigan:



Poor Governor Good Hair. As one wag put it, "His pandering extremism got caught in his throat."

Celebration at the White House over Ohio Vote Should be a Little Muted.

Ohio is a key battleground state for next year's presidential election.  In 2008, Barack Obama carried it by less than 5%of the vote, 51% to 47%.  Thus, the referendum today in Ohio on whether to rescind the GOP's union-busting law, Senate Bill 5, was widely watched for the implications it might have for President Obama's ability to hold Ohio's 20 electoral votes in 2012.

At first blush, the results of today's voting seemed to be encouraging for the President.  The pro-labor vote is running almost 2 to 1 in favor of rescinding the law that eviscerated collective bargaining rights for Ohio's public workers.  With well over half the ballots tabulated, labor was winning 62% to 38%.  The White House issued a statement applauding the citizens of Ohio for restoring collective bargaining rights.

But before everyone puts bets down on the President's chances in Ohio next year, there was another ballot initiative today in Ohio to consider.  Ballot Issue 3 was a proposed constitutional amendment to foreclose any law in Ohio that tries to require the type of individual mandate that is a key part of the Affordable Health Care Act, Obamacare.  The wording of the issue was very poorly done, and could be seen as inviting a vote in favor of freedom, motherhood and apple pie.  But it could also be seen as a stinging rejection of Obamacare.  The vote today was overwhelmingly in favor of making health care individual mandates unconstitutional, by a wider margin (66% to 34%) than the union victory on Ballot Issue 2.  The amendment is of little legal significance, as federal legislation can't be invalidated by individual states.  That issue was fought over and resolved 150 years ago.

Early returns show Ohio voters rescinding the Anti-Union Measure by Wide Margin

The CBS affiliate in Columbus is reporting that the votes in Ohio on rescinding the anti-union measure of GOP Governor Kasich are running pro-labor by almost 2-1.

Marlene Quinn schizoid, or the subject of conservative unsportsman-like conduct??

Script Ohio.



Voters in Ohio go to the polls today to vote on whether to repeal the public union-busting measure that was passed by the Ohio Legislature back in March of this year.  Ohio Senate Bill 5 substantially reduced the matters that can be negotiated during contract talks between management and public sector unions. The new Ohio law also prohibits public sector unions from striking. The law was promoted by Governor Kasich as a necessary tool to allow the state and local governments to get control of government personnel costs.

Ohio doesn't have a recall option for state officials.  Instead it has a voter's veto provision that permits the collection of signatures on a petition to subject newly enacted laws to a voters' referendum.   Once the requisite signatures are obtained and presented to the Secretary of State, the law is placed in limbo until the referendum is conducted.  I posted back in June about the huge success in gathering signatures of Ohioans supporting repeal of the law.  We Are Ohio, the citizens group sponsoring the referendum, had to obtain 231,000 valid signatures to put the measure on today's ballot, and they collected 1,300,000.

Recent public polling has indicated that the law is likely to be repealed.

Date of Poll	Pollster	In favor	Opposed	Undecided	Number polled
May 10-16, 2011	Quinnipiac University	36%	54%	10%	1,379
July 12-18, 2011	Quinnipiac University	32%	56%	12%	1,659
Sept. 20-25, 2011	Quinnipiac University	38%	51%	11%	1,301
October 25, 2011	Quinnipiac University	32%	57%	11%	1,668

 Source: Ballotpedia,Ohio Senate Bill 5.

But in recent weeks, conservative PACs and issue advocacy groups have poured a great deal of money into TV advertisement in an effort to sustain the law.  In addition, every major newspaper in Ohio has come out in support of the law.  One advertisement run by conservative groups is causing a stir in Ohio.

First, here is an ad run by We are Ohio, featuring Marlene Quinn, a very nice lady urging the repeal of the anti-union measure and giving a cogent and highly personal argument for doing so:



She must have been seen as a persuasive spokesperson, because a few weeks later Ms. Quinn appeared in the following ad run by Building a Better Ohio.  Building a Better Ohio is supported by God only knows who, because while finally releasing the names of donors on the eve of today's election (most of them are advocacy groups that aren't required to provide names of donors and amounts) the report released no amounts.



So, there you have it.  First Ms.Quinn opposed the anti-union measure, then turned into an ardent supporter by the marriage of computer technology with the scruples of a clam.  Nice going, Building a Better Ohio!

The outcome of today's referendum is likely to be a decent indicator of the possibility of success for pro-union Wisconsin voters in gathering sufficient signatures for a recall election on the governor and GOP senators, and the likelihood that a recall election will shift the balance of power in the state if the recall election is conducted.