Go suck on a $1 billion worth of lemons, Bucky

Remember when WI Gov. Scott ("Re-election Desperation") Walker told anyone objecting to his unprecedented giveaway of tax money to Foxconn to "go suck lemons?"

Well, looks like about a billion bucks worth of lemons will be sucked across the University system, the health care sector, public eduction and the rest of the general fund in just the next several budgets without being made into lemonade. 

Early onset buyers' remorse?

Or is the logical outcome of stripping the public treasury and resources for a private enterprise - - furthering Walker's vision of government run with "a chamber of commerce mentality" and reinforcing the right-wing myth that government can't be relied on to do its job?

Gee, sorry, transit users, Medicaid patients, teachers and health departments and local street aids: no state money for a few decades - - but have you got the latest LCD flatscreen TV?

For the far-right, this is taking lemons and making fine lemonade.

The GOP enables Trump's disrespect for the law

Tha Arapio pardon. Immigration and deportation illegalities. Trump's emoluments clause violations all over the place. Ivanka's brand and Jared's real estate promotion from the White House. Flynn and Jared's failure to disclose meetings with foreign leaders and a variety of Russian agents. Sessions and the EPA's Pruitt's failure to answer confirmation questions honestly while under oath.

And Trump's support for mob violence in Charlottesville, which actually began at his rallies, as did his threatening tone aimed at reporters for his own gratification and the mob's enjoyment.

On and on and downward goes this Administration's respect for the law, because the oath he and others took at and after the inauguration were just words.

It's like the whole team had its fingers crossed behind their backs - - but it's much more serious, unprecedented and consequential than that.

And if Trump were impeached and convicted, what makes anyone think he'd go without a fight from his AR-15 militia which he'd call in to save himself from the fake Congress, prosecutors and media?

Also to buy time to finish pardoning hilmself and the whole crooked lot.

There are monuments to the fight for freedom; more needed

Here's a Milwaukee historical marker in the downtown worth taking in. The text reads: 

Joshua Glover was a runaway slave who sought freedom in Racine in 1852. In 1854, his Missouri owner used the Fugitive Slave Act to apprehend him. This 1850 law permitted slave catchers to cross state lines to captured escaped slaves. Glover was taken to Milwaukee and imprisoned.

Word spread about Glover’s incarceration and a great crowd gathered around the jail demanding his release. They beat down the jail door and released Joshua Glover. He was eventually escorted to Canada and safety.

The Glover incident helped galvanize abolitionist sentiment in Wisconsin. This case eventually led the state supreme court to defy the federal government by declaring the Fugitive Slave Act unconstitutional.

WI conservationists still in there pitching

While Wisconsin government is working overtime to fill wetlands, bulldoze dunes and lay waste to the environment and the people's water at the probable Foxconn site and elsewhere, grassroots groups are still trying to preserve the legacies inherited.
Friends of the Monarch Trail are holding a public event on the 27th; people trying to save a nature preserve and adjoining public park land south of Sheboygan gave the DNR an earful last night, I am told, despite the agency's effort to diffuse opposition with an 'open house' meeting format designed to obscure and fail; and Kewaunee County farmers are trying to stop the DNR and the big Wisconsin CAFOs the agency has enabled from turning on the brown water tap.

These are uphill battles, so props to the good folks willing to take a stand for the rest of us and generations to follow.

Aug. 27 event celebrating natural habitat on the Monarch Trail

Always glad to promote the effort to save critical habitat what several units of government have left on the diminished public land still known as the Milwaukee County Grounds:

An invitation from The Friends of the Monarch Trail:

Greetings, Monarch Butterfly Lovers of all ages! The season has been terrific and we’re nearing our annual Migration Celebration Event! Come join us on Sunday, August 27, 2017, 4:30 - 7:30pm, in the "Eschweiler Quad" (9810 Eschweiler Dr., Wauwatosa, WI 53226) for a family friendly and free event.* There will be an Irish dance duet, traditional Irish music, educational displays, snacks and refreshments, and best of all, 2 guided tours. We can't wait to show you the incredible progress we've made with your help and your support. And yes!  There will be Monarchs! Come to see the remarkable transformation that's taken place since development began. We and the Monarchs look forward to seeing you. For more information, please visit www.theMonarchTrail.org *As always, donations are gratefully accepted. A favor to ask: Please share this flyer & info.  We want LOTS of people to enjoy this very special celebration of Monarch Butterflies!

Copyright © 2017 Friends of the Monarch Trail, All rights reserved.  You are recieving this email because you signed up for information regarding the Monarch Trail. We send information about upcoming events and updates about the monarch butterfly.  Our mailing address is:  Friends of the Monarch Trail 12326 W Watertown Plank Rd Milwaukee, WI  53226 Add us to your address book

Walker, GOP Legislature continue assault on DNR, public waters

Not content with stripping out scientists, and climate change information, and management of water in the public interest from the DNR, see: Foxconn, and groundwater privatization, etc. - - Walker and his special-interest legislative bellhops have opened a new line of attack on the agency and its ability to focus on public water rights:

Further bury what used to be the DNR's highly-respected Water Division into a jargon-laden, vaguely-titled nothing-to-do-with water "Division of External Services" that becomes a 'one-stop' business-friendly operation.

Like what the Department of Commerce used to be before Walker changed that to a partisan campaign donor favor bank, a/k/a/ Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation.

But now Wisconsin business needs even more special, should we say, official internal services to speed businesses external needs, given Foxconn, a looming new metals mining bill, intentional CAFO regulation disregard, faster deforestation, easier sand mine expansion, wetlands sacrifice, and more.

This latest DNR reorganization is par for the course as Walker shifts and downgrades again the agency according to the 'chamber of commerce mentality' he's made its mission since taking office - - just more blatant.

Two suggestions:

*  Keep your eye on this DNR webpage about Wisconsin's waters belong to all the people of the state, per the constitution, blah blah blah 'external services.' How long before this increasingly irrelevant and inaccurate page goes the way of the DNR's climate change site?

*  And for context, you might read what former Water Division administrator Todd Ambs wrote about what had been and where things were already headed two years ago as Walker drained meaning from the DNR's mission.

It was a noble effort, the Water Division in the state Department of Natural Resources. But like many noble conservation efforts in this state, it has been eliminated.

After reopening Civil War wounds, Trump turns hate to Native Americans

Not content with enabling white supremacy and anti-semitism by his murderous Klanish #Charlottesville supporters, Trump finds yet another way 

to disgrace his office by newly stealing land sacred to Native Americans with whom the US has had a genocidal, treaty-breaking history which Trump now extends.

And also to keep erasing President Obama's achievements while fitting back again so easily into the Andrew Jackson mode Trump so loves.

For shame doesn't begin to address this wrong.

No, the wolves are not eating all the WI deer, data show

Glad to see Journal Sentinel outdoors writer Paul A. Smith noting that both the deer and wolf populations are up simultaneously,, which is another way of saying that wolves are not 'eating all the deer,' as some hunters and wolf opponents have alleged. 

Wrote Smith:

Wolves obviously eat deer...But when compared to other sources of deer mortality in Wisconsin, wolves rank down the list. 

I ran the numbers and trends past David Mech, senior research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey in St. Paul, Minn. Mech has studied wolves for 59 years and is considered an expert on the species and its effect on plant and animal communities.

"Under these current Wisconsin regulations and conditions, wolves are apparently not a competitor, or aren't really having that much of an impact (on deer)," Mech said.

The leading causes of deer mortality in the state, as Wisconsin wildlife managers have long said, are human hunters and severe winters.

For the record, this 'wolves-eat-all-the-deer' myth was knocked down four years ago, as did 2010 data, with, again, weather, hunters, car-deer collisions and other factors coming into play.

Let's hope science and facts take center stage, especially as pressure is building in Congress to remove federal protection from grey wolves, including those in Wisconsin, and to allow states to establish and manage their own hunts, of which Wisconsin's was particularly controversial because dogs were allowed in the fray and state-sanctioned wolf kills were substantial before a fresh federal ban was laid down.

The controversy in Wisconsin also extends to wolf-dog fighting during bear hound training season, with fresh legal implications.

Put Walker's spin through the Foxconnomatic decoder...

And this Tweet from three hours ago:

Governor Walker‏Verified account @GovWalker

Pushing to renegotiate Foxconn deal will please 49 other Governors w/ a renewed chance to land thousands of family-supporting jobs from WI

Becomes:

They've got me just where they wanted.

Vintage Walker uses Foxconn to flip off the people

[Updated from 8/22/17] Divide-and-conquer Walker is back.

Truthfully, he never left.

Already running for a third term, Wisconsin's Governor says that people concerned about his plan to give Foxconn unprecedented powers to evade environmental reviews, alter streams, build into lakes and fill wetlands are all "hype and hysteria," and he further says those concerned about the $3 billion public dollars he wants to give Foxconn with minimal jobs' performance  and payback guarantees remind him of people who objected to the Act 10 "bomb" - - his word - - he dropped without warning on them.

Disagree with the imperious Governor. Go suck a lemon, he's suggested.

At least this time he didn't go all hype and hysteria himself and call those teachers, nurses and retirees ISIS fighters. 

Regardless, Walker is in full re-election campaign mode, mocking and degrading Wisconsin voters, residents, troubled taxpayers and everyday conservationists who have fought long and hard for an environment they can hand to their grandchildren, and who are think it's wrong for Walker to give away what is not his to givee away - - water rights and water access guaranteed to all the people of the state by the Wisconsin Constitution.

Hype and hysteria?

How can you trust a politician who insults and waives off people as enthusiastically as he awards waivers of the commonly-held to big companies - - with  mining firms already joining mega-dairies in line up for similar special privileges - - and discards his sworn duty as the people's trustee, too?

WI GOP leaders helped create and sustain the Trump catastrophe

[Updated with Cathy Stepp documentation.] It's about the right time as the dangerous, white supremacist-coddling, media-scapegoating, Putin-accomodating, dictator-aspiring, crowd-instigating Donald Trump rants entirely unpresidentially in Arizona, praises the convicted former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and repeatedly lies to the cameras and the crowd to remind people in Wisconsin and my friends elsewhere that Speaker Ryan, Gov. Walker, Sen. Johnson

DNR Secretary Cathy Stepp and the entire Wisconsin GOP Congressional delegation stood with, raised money for, campaigned as a team and continue to support this very sick, menacing Commander in Chief. An embarrassed and correctly worried state condemns you all.

At AZ rally, Trump focuses on main #Charlottesville victim

The victim is:

WI DNR: all quiet on Kewaunee County e. coli pollution front

Last month I asked The Wisconsin DNR if it had distributed any of the bottled water it pledged to Kewaunee County residents with manure runoff-contaminated

well water.

The answer was "no," because no one had asked for any.

I renewed my request and this was the updated response today from agency spokesman James F. Dick: 

We haven't received any reports of manure impacted private wells in Kewaunee County in the last few months. We would have no idea if any have been reported to the Kewaunee Health Dept. since the county health programs are not required to report e. Coli positive private wells to the DNR. We haven’t received any requests for emergency water under the criteria spelled out in NR 738.
 

Beware linking the words "Scott Walker" and "principle"

And, of course, Walker's announcement of an overdue budget deal "in principle" was shot down by legislators with whom he'd struck that deal.

It's his red-ink stained, incoherent, and 2018-campaign focused budget, thus his delay, so why would they bail him out?

And what is it with Walker and budgets?

Remember the "modest, modest proposal" he made to resolve an alleged budget deficit - - his 2011 budget deal better known as Act 10.

And, of course, Walker's 'deal' would put an extra fee on hybrid and electric vehicles to close the transportation spending gap he's been broadening since 2003 by backing major highway expansion projects with no funding in hand, while continuing his Koch-friendly war against alternative energy technologies while big rigs and heavy vehicles do more damage to pavement than Chevy Volts and Toyota Priuses.

(Full disclosure: I own a 2006, light-as-a-feather Honda Ciivic hybrid, and pay the every year same vehicle registration fee as a much heavier sedan or SUV.)

Bottom line: you'll be conned again if trust Walker's claims about Foxconn, because there is nothing principled about him.

Another day, another Foxconn data correction

I'd said over the weekend that there were plenty of reasons to slow down the fast-tracked Foxconn plan.

And I'd noted Walker and his partisan allies' dubious Foxconn workforce claims - - followed by corrections to Foxconn payroll estimates and other critical projections - - a weakness clouding the project from its sudden disclosure.

So on the eve of today's pivotal, and perhaps last Foxconn hearing schedule in Kenosha another report was released with more rosy economic projections - - but which included a news release and abstract containing a substantial spin-off jobs-counting error.

The mistake was acknowledged and corrected, but it highlights the need for more caution as proponents propel the state to unprecedented and long-term financial and environmental risk.


A broad archive on these issues, here.

Ryan holds a tardy, messy town hall

I'd said on this blog more than once recently - - and just yesterday - - that GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan was enabling Trump by failing to forcefully and personally condemn the President for his divisive, pro-white nationalism remarks and actions.

For the record, Ryan did directly criticize Trump at a town hall meeting televised by CNN Monday night, but we're not talking a Profiles In Courage performance.

Seriously: the President "messed up"?

This is how the person next in the Presidential line of succession after the Vice-President analyzes a pivotal moment in the life of a controversial administration.

On national television?

And, no - - Trump did more than stumble or goof. He was revealing his bigoted true self and racist past that includes refusing to rent apartments to African-Americans, race-baiting Black teenagers wrongly accused in a high-profile New York City rape case and further race-baiting President Obama's American citizenship and presidential legitimacy.

Either Ryan was talking down to his audience or doing everything he could make sure Trump took no offense.

After all, Ryan's permanently-shrink-the government tax reform bill needs Trump's blessing.

Ryan further watered down his remarks by saying he thought Trump should Tweet "a little less," let a full week go by after Trump's ugly news conference two days after the rightists' fatal riot in Charlottesville, and had the benefit of fresh polling data that showed Ryan was taking no risk in directly criticizing Trump or his tweeting.

Paul Ryan enables Trump's hate by refusing to say his name

Still coddling the fringe - - or is it the heart - - of the WI GOP base?

So pathetic that wimps like Paul Ryan

and others in the Party of Lincoln and representing state in which the GOP was founded will not name and say"Donald Trump" wrongly equated neo-nazis, Klansmen and anti-semites with people protesting neo-nazis, Klansmen and anti-semites.

Ryan & Co. are playing a waiting game, hoping this blows over.

It will not.

Because the racists are here, and they will be back, and their hateful consequences will further embed themselves on Ryan, Walker and Ron Johnson's Wisconsin doorsteps.

If you hate NASA, EPA, go all the way with it

Thursday's Kohler golf course 'open house' site changed

Two important things about Thursday's 'open house'-not-a-hearing-meeting on the proposed Kohler golf course at its newly-mapped location after being annexed at the request of Kohler interests to the City of Sheboygan to suppress opposition in the Town of Wilson where the land in question -  a nature preserve - - was located.

The location has been changed:

The meeting had originally been scheduled to be held at Sheboygan Falls High School. The open house will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. in "The Commons" at the UW-Sheboygan, One University Drive, Sheboygan.

People can still press for a hearing where positions would be defended and a record established.

The DNR notes there is a public comment period ending September 8th on proposed changes to the adjoining state park master plan to accommodate the golf course - - 

- - and the notice on the DNR's website and another here has the new location.

On Foxconn assurances, consider the sources & histories

Leading Wisconsin GOP officials keep saying that the Foxconn bill with its precedent-setting billions in taxpayer subsidies and unique waivers from environmental reviews and law will create huge numbers of jobs without harming the environment.

Make sure you consider those same officials' track records, statements and past performances when jobs, the environment and truth-telling were on the table.

* Both right-wing GOP Gov. Scott Walker and now-GOP Assembly Speaker and major Foxconn booster Robin Vos said in 2012 that Wisconsin was on the cusp of skyrocketing job growth:

Walker - - "I think you're going to see a tremendous takeoff."

       Vos - - "Our economy is going to take off like a rocket."

*  Those numbers never materialized; PolitiFact in 2014 ranked Walker's signature 250,000-new-jobs in four years pledges a "broken promise."

State employers added an estimated 53,400 jobs in 2014, pushing the total for his four-year term to 146,795. That's about 59 percent of the total Walker promised as a candidate.

*  Subsequent data reveal a seven-year Walker skyrocket dud:

The fourth quarter numbers for 2015 and 2016 from the BLS show Wisconsin added 38,077 and 11,548 jobs respectively. The 2016 growth numbers were the worst during Walker’s tenure and the worst since the economy rebounded after the 2008-’09 recession.

In total, Wisconsin has added a total of 179,778 private sector jobs during Walker’s near seven years as governor, which puts him 70,000 short of the pledged 250,000 new jobs.

*  On the environmental protection and water pollution front under Cathy Stepp, the DNR Secretary Walker installed because she had just "the chamber of commerce mentality" he was looking for, and with the desired results, well, there isn't one, a recent state audit found:

The audit found that enforcement actions of municipal and industrial wastewater permits declined from 2005 through 2014. The auditors, using the DNR’s own standards, also found the agency failed to issue violation notices nearly 6% of the time in 558 cases they examined.

In addition, it turned up backlogs: The DNR did inspections of 17 large farms — 6.5% of the total — after permits had already been re-issued.

*  Stepp has never hidden her pro-industry biases, so offered up a patented smiley-faced big business analyses to spin a dramatic declining in pollution fines during her tenure:

I would say I think it's good news that those numbers are going down.

*  Finally, I said this weekend it was important to get to the bottom of a) who decided to withhold from legislators and the public prior to the Assembly's rushed approval vote Thursday job projection data from Foxconn that were far below the 13,000 new jobs now touted by Walker, and b) how that number grew almost 5,000 to 13,000 from 8,240.

There is precedent for Walker withholding public records from media and the public when those records would cast him and his big-picture budgeting and policy-making in a negative light.

Remember when Walker tried to quietly wipe out the historic, public-service Wisconsin Idea from the UW System's mission, first claiming when the news hit the fan that it was due to "a drafting error" before saying to was all the UW administration's idea - - both of which were proven false after Walker was forced by a court order to release records he'd withheld which showed it was his idea all along:

Records: Scott Walker wanted Wisconsin Idea changes