Even the Wall Street Journal weighs in for Scott Walker in an editorial written by Wausau, Wisconsin attorney Christopher Toner:
Wisconsin's recall election is on, pitting Gov. Scott Walker against Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. If Mr. Walker is voted out of office on June 5, what other politician will be willing to step forward to address America's entitlement challenges?
He goes on to praise Walkers "reforms" of public employees with the meme that Walker simply brought public employees "more in line with private business", a tried and true meme of the monied interests who believe government exists to benefit them through tax breaks and subsidies or through funnelling taxpayer dollars into their hands via privatization of public services. They decry every cent that government spends that doesn't end up in their pockets.
He discounts employees need for a voice in the workplace by whining about the thousands of grievances and the time employers spend to deal with them as well as the 129 unresolved serious matters that were taken to a full hearing with the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission in 2010 when they were not resolved in the workplace. Yes, Walker ended that, he crows. No more grievances because the only things that can be bargained for now are wages under a limit established by the state.
Of course, as I always told my management when I was a union steward:
If you don't want grievances, don't violate the contract.
Contracts are legal agreements between workers and management, negotiated over many weeks and months. Grievances are the only way to address a violation - a fact missing in Mr. Toners op-ed.
And then, unions also took a few things to court, like furloughs (mandatory unpaid days off) which were imposed without negotiation or even discussion with the unions. Those cases, which the unions generally won, make Mr. Toner sad, not because the local government violated their contract with the unions and got sanctioned by the courts, but because of the "waste" of taxpayer money trying to defend the actions of the local government. And, of course, the obligatory meme of unions being "sue happy".
He goes on to argue that unions are unnecessary because of laws like the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, etc., but fails to mention that many of the court cases he berates deal with violations of those laws, as well.
And then, he warns:
Recalling Gov. Walker and reinstating collective-bargaining rights would guarantee a tax hike to pay astronomical, pre-Walker-level health and retirement benefits to union members. Local governments would have to continue fighting in front of arbitrators to exert any semblance of control over their workforce. And big labor would be able to exert more control over politicians and dictate reform on its terms—which is virtually no reform at all.
If politicians nationwide see Mr. Walker as a cautionary tale, what will happen on the inevitable day when we have to tell seniors that they must contribute more toward Medicare or wait until age 68 to receive Social Security? Will the AARP run those people out of office too?
And the RW leaning Milwaukee Journal Sentinel not only endorsed Walker (again!) but has a 23 minute video on their main web page that, although there are a few decent monents, looks and sounds more like a campaign ad for Walker than an informative piece of journalism:
Did you notice how every point against Walkers extremist agenda was dismissed with skeptism and lies? Notice all the Republican memes and propaganda get promoted? Notice how Wisconsins nation-leading job losses don't merit a mention? Yeah, this is supposed to be "journalism" about "The Choice".
The Journal Sentinel has been setting up this endorsement for weeks by fluff pieces on Walker and probing questions to Barrett. Just like 2010. And their headline and content in an recent article on the Bureau of Labor Statistics report that Wisconsin lost another 6,000 jobs in April was changed 4 times to please Walker as I reported in the 4th update to this diary. I'm not the only one who noticed that, either, as the headline originally quoted the job loss, then increasingly questioned the BLS data which every state in the country uses to monitor employment gains and losses.
Of course, there is media that's not buying into Walker. Both Forbes and Bloomberg News published LMAO pieces on Walkers Miracle Math jobs numbers that magically turn tens of thousands of job losses into 33,000 job gains. However, people in this state don't turn to Forbes or Bloomberg for news. They watch local news and read local papers, and that's the real problem when news becomes stenography for Republican talking points and not fact-checked, real journalism.
They're rolling out the strategy they used to purchase the Governorship and GOP majority control of our State Legislature: mega millions for campaign ads, mega millions in outside attack ads, and RW hate radio saturating the state. But, most responsible, in my view, is a media that carries water, for Scott Walker and his political allies by "journalism" like this, softball questions and puff pieces for Republicans and severe grilling and questioning of Democrats, as well as promoting GOP memes and talking points as though they were news.
Should they prevail here, this strategy will be rolled out everywhere in the nation. Extremist Republican Governors and State Legislatures will be emboldened to enact the most ideological laws that their monied donors have on their wish lists. Elections will become auctions with the monied interests "investing" in their future profits at our expense.
Tens of thousands of us are "all in" to remove Scott Walker and his Republican allies. We're phone banking, canvassing, talking neighbor to neighbor, family member to family member, co-worker to co-worker. So are unions, community organizations, and now, finally the DNC and Democratic Governors Association.
It's still all uphill.
Links:
Tom Barrett
Wisconsin Democratic Party
We Are Wisconsin
Thanks for all your support and help.
12:27 PM PT: Sorry about being gone for a while. 7 year old puter had another malfunction and I had to reboot when it didn't clear the problem. Off to the comments again.
More: Here's Tom Barretts new ad:
Brand new today.
More #2: More Shame on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Edition: On the same day they endorsed Scott Walker, 2 other articles have appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on the effects of Scott Walker and his band of merry ideologues:
First, a notation on the incredible decrease in environmental inspections caused by Walker making our Department of Natural Resources an "enterprise agency" with the mandate to work with business and a decrease in the DNR employees.
However, even the EPA has taken notice:
EPA spokeswoman Phillippa Cannon said in a statement: "EPA raised concerns about Wisconsin's enforcement performance, including its inspection program, in the Nov. 1, 2011, state review framework report. The state has identified actions it will take to improve its performance . . . In addition, EPA recently negotiated and signed a performance partnership agreement with Wisconsin to determine compliance and enforcement priorities and set a framework for state inspections and casework."
The other article
notes a decline of 1,446 teachers (2.4% of all teachers) in Wisconsin despite Walkers lie that school districts have added teachers by using his "tools".
The report found that of the state's 424 districts, 107 added teachers, 125 had reductions of less than 2.5%, another 94 districts reduced teaching staff between 2.5% and 5%, and 98 sustained cuts of 5% or more.
Wisconsin did see massive numbers of teachers and other public employees retire in 2011 to escape the worst of Walkers peel backs. Walker counts the replacement teachers as "additional" teachers while not counting retirements as losses in the numbers he uses.
3:05 PM PT: Just tweaked the title to reflect that this isn't about $$$, but about the Journal Sentinel endorsement, the WSJ editorial, and our lousy corporate media.