Now Wisconsin

[Zarathud]

How Christian of Gov. Walker.

[Rip]

How Christian of Gov. Walker.

As Governor he has to do what is best for the state, you know separation of church and state and all that.

[Fireball]

There has, historically, been a direct correlation between the share of the workforce in unions and the wages and success of middle class families. As union membership rose in the 20th Century, the middle class began to prosper and the share of the nation's wealth owned by families in the lower 4 quintiles grew steadily. When union membership flatlined, the growth in middle class wealth flattened. And over the last 35 years, as union membership has slipped dramatically, so has the share of wealth held by middle class families.

Surely a coincidence.

[Rip]

I guess we should be mandating union membership when we amend the constitution to make voting mandatory?

[hepcat]

In other words, facts, schmacts.

[Rip]

In other words, facts, schmacts.

Cerrelation != causation, in fact I would suggest that the same thing led to both of them not one of them causing the other.

[GreenGoo]

In other words, facts, schmacts.

Cerrelation != causation, in fact I would suggest that the same thing led to both of them not one of them causing the other.

The end of slavery?

[Rip]

In other words, facts, schmacts.

Cerrelation != causation, in fact I would suggest that the same thing led to both of them not one of them causing the other.

The end of slavery?

Industrial technology revolution/evolution. No jobs for the poorly educated on the assembly line making medium class wages, so much less needs for unions to bargain for them to be even more overpaid. Now they are all working in low end service jobs and you don't need a union to negotiate min wage jobs.

Come up with a crapload of low skilled jobs that pay double what other jobs pay the poorly educated and unions will come roaring back.

[Zarathud]

you don't need a union to negotiate min wage jobs.

I think you're missing the entire point of Unions, Rip. Negotiating so that jobs aren't for minimum wage just because the employers can get away with not paying.

[GreenGoo]

The industrial revolution just brought poor farmers into the city to be poor factory workers.

It was great for the baron robbers though.

Which, of course, is why unions were created in the first place.

[Rip]

you don't need a union to negotiate min wage jobs.

I think you're missing the entire point of Unions, Rip. Negotiating so that jobs aren't for minimum wage just because the employers can get away with not paying.

But there is no negotiating room for those jobs. Those businesses would just fade away if the wage demands got too high and min wage is already at/near that mark. There are lots of illegal immigrants that will already work them for less. It will only get worse when they finish opening up the gates of opportunity to any that desire it. Factory workers at least had some skills they obtained that made them of value, no such thing in today's unskilled work.

[Rip]

The industrial revolution just brought poor farmers into the city to be poor factory workers.

It was great for the baron robbers though.

Which, of course, is why unions were created in the first place.

and also why they are no longer desired by most people. Farms are corporate and the only other place for them to go is fast food or dumping bedpans. The industrial revolution gave people without much education the ability to obtain skills that were valued in the market. There are no more uneducated worker jobs where you can have skills that are valued in the market place. Now to have any value you MUST be educated and if you are educated you really don't need a union unless you are a slacker/screw up that wants someone to keep you from being replaced because of it. If you have skills the market will pay now, well unless they can replace you with some H1B visa scabs.

[Zarathud]

Factory workers at least had some skills they obtained that made them of value, no such thing in today's unskilled work.

I think you are confusing today's factory workers with those from the industrial revolution.

If you don't think clearing a table or digging ditches doesn't involve skills, there's not a lot of hope for you. What you mean to say is that the jobs don't require a lot of education.

Plus, if you earn enough to feed the family then your spouse might not need to also work to make ends meet. Or you might not need two or three jobs.

[Rip]

Factory workers at least had some skills they obtained that made them of value, no such thing in today's unskilled work.

I think you are confusing today's factory workers with those from the industrial revolution.

If you don't think clearing a table or digging ditches doesn't involve skills, there's not a lot of hope for you. What you mean to say is that the jobs don't require a lot of education.

Plus, if you earn enough to feed the family then your spouse might not need to also work to make ends meet. Or you might not need two or three jobs.

Oh they might have skills but they are easily learned non-specialized skills. Not like the assembly line workers and craftsmen of old. It took years of apprenticeship to become good at those jobs. Yes, I mean jobs that don't need a lot of education but I am speaking more specifically of jobs that required a great deal of vocational/on-the-job/experience to become proficient and valuable at. Machinists, welders, cabinet makers, and even telephone operators. Those things required highly refined skills that didn't necessarily require much education. No offense to the ditch diggers and table clearers but the challenge in obtaining the skills and the time required aren't even close. The middle class jobs of today require an ever increasing level of education and are VERY educational dependent.

[Zarathud]

Actually, the assembly line workers replaced the skilled craftsmen. In comparison, their skill set seemed narrow and workers were treated as easily replaceable. That happened until unions stepped in and insisted on decent pay and treatment, and the workers were able to show their skills were worth the additional wages.

Don't discount the skills of working-class people who don't have a college education. The Focus Brands Group President Kat Cole (Auntie Anne's, Cinnabon, Carvel) attributes her success to skills learned as a Hooters hostess and waitress, not college.

College may unlock better lifetime earning potential, but all work skills can become highly refined in low-wage jobs. I worked in factories through college summers. The people who worked those jobs year around had a much higher productivity and could figure out hacks to get the job done to make bonus. My dad spent his career as an mechanical/electrical engineer fixing the designs of college graduates because he understood the practical aspects of how the designs would have to be assembled -- from years of learning the hard way on the factory floor. You know, that guy who would notice that the temperature control on dbt's freezer was someplace the shelf would turn it down to defrost.

Common sense can be as valuable (or more) in many respects than college education. It's just not valued anymore by the market because the people running things haven't worked their way up through the business. If Gov. Walker wants to build better business in Wisconsin, he should find a way to get the best union workers promoted to management.

[Rip]

Don't get me wrong, it can be but seldom is. Either way unions do little to bring that about.

[Isgrimnur]

Well, the employers certainly aren't going to do it.

[Rip]

If the unions want to survive they need to organize the robots.

Robots and computer programs could almost wipeout human workers in jobs from cooks to truck drivers, a visiting researcher has warned.

Driverless cars and even burger-flipping robots are among the technological advancements gunning for low-skilled jobs across dozens of industries.

University of Oxford Associate Professor in machine learning Michael Osborne has examined the characteristics of 702 occupations in the US, predicting 47 per cent will be overtaken by computers in the next decade or two.

By contrast, only about 10 per cent of workers in the information sector, software developers and higher level management were at risk of automation.

Professor Osborne said machines and computers still struggled with creativity, social intelligence and the manipulation of complex objects, making jobs with high requirements in these areas less vulnerable to robotisation.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technol ... m5oei.html

[Jaymann]

Indeed.

[Moliere]

Wisconsin’s Shame: ‘I Thought It Was a Home Invasion’

For dozens of conservatives, the years since Scott Walker’s first election as governor of Wisconsin transformed the state — known for pro-football championships, good cheese, and a population with a reputation for being unfailingly polite — into a place where conservatives have faced early-morning raids, multi-year secretive criminal investigations, slanderous and selective leaks to sympathetic media, and intrusive electronic snooping.

Yes, Wisconsin, the cradle of the progressive movement and home of the “Wisconsin idea” — the marriage of state governments and state universities to govern through technocratic reform — was giving birth to a new progressive idea, the use of law enforcement as a political instrument, as a weapon to attempt to undo election results, shame opponents, and ruin lives.

Most Americans have never heard of these raids, or of the lengthy criminal investigations of Wisconsin conservatives. For good reason. Bound by comprehensive secrecy orders, conservatives were left to suffer in silence as leaks ruined their reputations, as neighbors, looking through windows and dismayed at the massive police presence, the lights shining down on targets’ homes, wondered, no doubt, What on earth did that family do?

This was the on-the-ground reality of the so-called John Doe investigations, expansive and secret criminal proceedings that directly targeted Wisconsin residents because of their relationship to Scott Walker, their support for Act 10, and their advocacy of conservative reform.

[GreenGoo]

I'm gonna need some corroboration on this one.

Given how dishonest Walker was when he nuked collective bargaining, I'm going hafta take this one with a grain of salt.

It's not that I think politicians are above this sort of thing. In fact nothing seems to surprise me any more, it's just that it seems a little contrived and it seems strange that it is only now making the news, liberal media conspiracy against the conservatives in Wisconsin not withstanding of course.

[em2nought]

Wisconsin’s Shame: ‘I Thought It Was a Home Invasion’

For dozens of conservatives, the years since Scott Walker’s first election as governor of Wisconsin transformed the state — known for pro-football championships, good cheese, and a population with a reputation for being unfailingly polite — into a place where conservatives have faced early-morning raids, multi-year secretive criminal investigations, slanderous and selective leaks to sympathetic media, and intrusive electronic snooping.

Yes, Wisconsin, the cradle of the progressive movement and home of the “Wisconsin idea” — the marriage of state governments and state universities to govern through technocratic reform — was giving birth to a new progressive idea, the use of law enforcement as a political instrument, as a weapon to attempt to undo election results, shame opponents, and ruin lives.

Most Americans have never heard of these raids, or of the lengthy criminal investigations of Wisconsin conservatives. For good reason. Bound by comprehensive secrecy orders, conservatives were left to suffer in silence as leaks ruined their reputations, as neighbors, looking through windows and dismayed at the massive police presence, the lights shining down on targets’ homes, wondered, no doubt, What on earth did that family do?

This was the on-the-ground reality of the so-called John Doe investigations, expansive and secret criminal proceedings that directly targeted Wisconsin residents because of their relationship to Scott Walker, their support for Act 10, and their advocacy of conservative reform.

Like I needed a reason to hate the democratic leadership even more. LMAO

[Moliere]

I'm gonna need some corroboration on this one.

I know you won't trust sites like Fox News. Most seem to be re-reporting what was posted by National Review. I'm sure there will be more follow-up articles in the next couple of days or weeks.

Here is something similar from 2013 in the WSJ.

Wisconsin Political Speech Raid

In recent weeks, special prosecutor Francis Schmitz has hit dozens of conservative groups with subpoenas demanding documents related to the 2011 and 2012 campaigns to recall Governor Walker and state legislative leaders.

Copies of two subpoenas we've seen demand "all memoranda, email . . . correspondence, and communications" both internally and between the subpoena target and some 29 conservative groups, including Wisconsin and national nonprofits, political vendors and party committees.
...
The investigation is taking place under Wisconsin's John Doe law, which bars a subpoena's targets from disclosing its contents to anyone but his attorneys. John Doe probes work much like a grand jury, allowing prosecutors to issue subpoenas and conduct searches, while the gag orders leave the targets facing the resources of the state with no way to publicly defend themselves.

That makes it hard to confirm any details. But one target who did confirm receiving a subpoena is Eric O'Keefe, who realizes the personal risk but wants the public to know what is going on. Mr. O'Keefe is director of the Wisconsin Club for Growth, which advocates lower taxes, limited government and other conservative priorities. He has worked in political and policy circles for three decades, including stints as national director of the Libertarian Party in 1980 and a director of the Cato Institute, and he helped to found the Center for Competitive Politics, which focuses on protecting political speech.

Mr. O'Keefe says he received his subpoena in early October. He adds that at least three of the targets had their homes raided at dawn, with law-enforcement officers turning over belongings to seize computers and files.

[GreenGoo]

Thanks.

That's appalling.

Hulk smash!

[Pyperkub]

Wisconsin's suspicious efforts to make Government less transparent:

 The governor—whom former White House counsel John Dean refers to as “more Nixonian than Nixon”—has never been much for transparency. But a botched attempt by his legislative allies to gut the state’s open-records law has blown up on Walker in a big way....

...Without public hearings or meaningful debate, the 12 GOP legislators moved at the very last minute of the committee’s budget deliberations to insert a radical rewrite of standards governing public access to information about how legislation is developed and how elected officials carry out their duties.

What these legislators proposed was an end to transparency in Wisconsin, with a sweeping plan to shut down the avenues by which citizens and journalists can monitor the most significant actions of Walker’s administration, Walker-controlled state agencies, and the Legislature.

I sense the hand of ALEC here, as it definitely smacks of their brand of legislation, and their desire to hide their activities.

[Rip]

Walker win AGAIN!

Presidential candidate Scott Walker won a major legal victory Thursday when Wisconsin’s Supreme Court ended a secret investigation into whether the Republican’s gubernatorial campaign illegally coordinated with conservative groups during the 2012 recall election.
No one has been charged in what is called a John Doe probe, Wisconsin’s version of a grand jury investigation in which information is tightly controlled, but questions about the investigation have dogged Walker for months.
Barring an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the ruling makes Walker’s campaign that much smoother as he courts voters in early primary states.

http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/ ... 389173.php

[Enough]

Walker win AGAIN!

Presidential candidate Scott Walker won a major legal victory Thursday when Wisconsin’s Supreme Court ended a secret investigation into whether the Republican’s gubernatorial campaign illegally coordinated with conservative groups during the 2012 recall election.
No one has been charged in what is called a John Doe probe, Wisconsin’s version of a grand jury investigation in which information is tightly controlled, but questions about the investigation have dogged Walker for months.
Barring an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the ruling makes Walker’s campaign that much smoother as he courts voters in early primary states.

http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/ ... 389173.php

Yeah, what a great day for America. Another worthless court lets off a Chicago-style pay to play campaign donation racket headed up by Walker. Something to be real proud of there Rip. No more complaints about Chicago politics out of you.

[Rip]

Walker win AGAIN!

Presidential candidate Scott Walker won a major legal victory Thursday when Wisconsin’s Supreme Court ended a secret investigation into whether the Republican’s gubernatorial campaign illegally coordinated with conservative groups during the 2012 recall election.
No one has been charged in what is called a John Doe probe, Wisconsin’s version of a grand jury investigation in which information is tightly controlled, but questions about the investigation have dogged Walker for months.
Barring an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the ruling makes Walker’s campaign that much smoother as he courts voters in early primary states.

http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/ ... 389173.php

Yeah, what a great day for America. Another worthless court lets off a Chicago-style pay to play campaign donation racket headed up by Walker. Something to be real proud of there Rip. No more complaints about Chicago politics out of you.

Trying to make up for decisions from that other worthless court.

[hepcat]

Now you're against gay marriage.

[Rip]

Now you're against gay marriage.

What makes you think I am referring to that decision?

[LawBeefaroni]

Now you're against gay marriage.

What makes you think I am referring to that decision?

Clearly Rip is referring to Reed v. Town of Gilbert.

[Enough]

Now you're against gay marriage.

Rip: against marriage but pro cronyism!

[Zarathud]

Gov. Walker has alienated my life-long Republican dad -- who proudly voted for Ross Perot because both Bush and Clinton would "raise taxes and the deficit" at the same time.

[hepcat]

Now you're against gay marriage.

What makes you think I am referring to that decision?

You said "decisions" and I assumed you were talking about the Supreme Court and their rulings on Gay Rights and Obamacare. If not, I withdraw my comment.

[LawBeefaroni]

Gov. Walker has alienated my life-long Republican dad -- who proudly voted for Ross Perot because both Bush and Clinton would "raise taxes and the deficit" at the same time.

The wife has expanded her state boycott from Indiana to now include Wisconsin thanks to Walker. Going to make driving to the UP difficult. Maybe I can rent a boat?

[Jeff V]

Gov. Walker has alienated my life-long Republican dad -- who proudly voted for Ross Perot because both Bush and Clinton would "raise taxes and the deficit" at the same time.

The wife has expanded her state boycott from Indiana to now include Wisconsin thanks to Walker. Going to make driving to the UP difficult. Maybe I can rent a boat?

Difficult, but not impossible.

[Rip]

Now you're against gay marriage.

What makes you think I am referring to that decision?

You said "decisions" and I assumed you were talking about the Supreme Court and their rulings on Gay Rights and Obamacare. If not, I withdraw my comment.

Obamacare, yes. They have made numerous poor decisions on that. Gay rights not so much.

[Isgrimnur]

Gov. Walker has alienated my life-long Republican dad -- who proudly voted for Ross Perot because both Bush and Clinton would "raise taxes and the deficit" at the same time.

The wife has expanded her state boycott from Indiana to now include Wisconsin thanks to Walker. Going to make driving to the UP difficult. Maybe I can rent a boat?

Difficult, but not impossible.

You should start a ferry service. Chicago to New Buffalo.

[Jeff V]

Gov. Walker has alienated my life-long Republican dad -- who proudly voted for Ross Perot because both Bush and Clinton would "raise taxes and the deficit" at the same time.

The wife has expanded her state boycott from Indiana to now include Wisconsin thanks to Walker. Going to make driving to the UP difficult. Maybe I can rent a boat?

Difficult, but not impossible.

You should start a ferry service. Chicago to New Buffalo.

I don't have a boat, but one of my former slaves has one in New Buffalo. Which reminds me, I need to find a day when I can impose on him to invite us out for a ride.

FWIW, as long as you drive THROUGH Indiana but just don't stop there, I don't consider it patronizing the state at all. Just the opposite -- by doing so, you are contributing to wear and tear on their infrastructure. Of course, you'll want to avoid the toll road...

[Pyperkub]

Behold - the effects of Citizen's United:

The John Doe files published today open a door onto how modern US elections operate in the wake of Citizens United, the 2010 US supreme court ruling that unleashed a flood of corporate money into the political process. They speak to the mounting sense of public unease about the cosy relationship between politicians and big business, and to the frustration of millions of Americans who feel disenfranchised by an electoral system that put the needs of corporate donors before ordinary voters.

The theme has become a rallying cry in the US presidential election. Bernie Sanders accused politicians – not least his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton – of selling themselves to Wall Street and special interests.

Donald Trump went further, brazenly using himself as an example of a billionaire who has put politicians in his pocket. “When you give to them,” he said in a confessional tone during a televised Republican debate in the run-up to the primaries, “they do whatever the hell you want them to do.”