Wages still suck in Walker's Wisconsin, while Madison ranks high in nation for Tech Jobs!!

Angry Wisconsin voters resent being forgotten, and worse, living paycheck to paycheck in what they've been told is a "roaring" economy. That's what voters liked about Trump's campaign rhetoric, as bizarre as it was. He said he'd help those who always say they don't want help...that's so Republican. 

Alternet describes Alissa Quart's view of this from her new book “Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America.”

Today, with their incomes flat or falling, these Americans scramble to maintain a semblance of what their parents enjoyed. Trained to be educators, lawyers, librarians, and accountants, they do work they can’t stand to support families they rarely see. Petrified of being pushed aside by robots, they rankle to see financial titans and tech gurus flaunting their obscene wealth at every turn. Headlines gush of a humming economy, but it doesn’t feel like a party to them ... Their new reality: You will not do as well as your parents. Life is a struggle to keep up. Even if you achieve something, you will live in fear of losing it. America is not your land: it belongs to the ultra-rich.

And there's good reason to worry:

The share of children with higher inflation-adjusted incomes than their parents—declined from around 90 percent for children born in 1940 to just 50 percent for those born in 1984. This seems to have become steadily harder to achieve for those born into middle-class families in particular from 1950 onward.

Scott Walker's War Against the Minimum Wage: While Walker hands out billions of dollars to big business, employee wages are still oddly controlled by "free market" forces. Wisconsin's wages were climbing back up when Walker came in, enacted Act 10 and steered clear of raising the minimum wage:

Walker said $7.25 just fine, thinking he was making a strong case in front of a panel of reporters. More than anything, they were amazed at Walker's surreal interpretation of the statement, "people want the minimum wage increased" You'll laugh, you'll cry...Oh, and I cut out Walker's word salad non-answers:

Scott Walker: "The left claims that they're for American workers and they've just got really lame ideas — things like the minimum wage. Instead of focusing on that, we need to talk about how we get people ... the careers that pay far more than the minimum wage."

So Walker did just that, talked, and never got anyone "far more than the minimum wage."

International Business Times: The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, and issued a statement saying: "Governor Walker wants jobs in Wisconsin that pay two or three times the minimum wage.

It's no surprise that what Walker "wants" doesn't help "700,000 state residents making less than $11.36 an hour, the amount needed to keep a family of four out of poverty." Walker held firm to $7.25.

Walker's fanciful "Manufacturing Renaissance" failed until Foxconn. Now Walker's discovered Tech?: Well, better late than never. But no one would be so irresponsible to put all their future state budgets into the Foxconn basket?

In the supposed anti-business Liberal hellhole Madison, they discovered that tech talent "secret" long ago, now see what happened: 

“Tech companies continue to see Madison as a place to tap into quality talent and real estate at costs much lower than in the major national markets,” said Chase Brieman, of CBRE’s Madison office.

1. The Madison area is ranked 3rd, tied with Orange County, California, on a list of 50 metropolitan areas in North America by the Scoring Tech Talent Report issued by CBRE, a major commercial real estate services and investment firm based in Los Angeles.

2. Madison’s tech talent labor force grew 10.6 percentage points faster in 2016 and 2017 than it did from 2014 through 2015.

3. Ottawa, Ontario, and Los Angeles were listed as the top two in rising tech talent.

4. Madison’s tech labor pool has grown 39.5 percent since 2012, second only to Nashville.

5. The Madison area ranks highest in its concentration of millennials — 26.4 percent — as a portion of the urban population.

6. Madison is No. 2 in educational attainment with 59.6 percent of urban residents age 25 or older holding a bachelor’s degree or higher. Seattle was No. 1.

Walker Finds "No Need, No Reasonable Cause" for Minimum Wage Hike: Remember this now infamous Walker gem:

Under pressure to raise the state's minimum wage, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker confidently declared that there was no need. Low-wage workers had filed a complaint charging that the state's minimum wage -- $7.25 -- did not constitute a "living wage" as mandated by state law. But the Republican governor's administration, after examining the issue, announced on Oct. 6 that it found "no reasonable cause" for the workers' complaint.

The only economic analysis that the administration released in response was one from the Wisconsin Restaurant Association -- a group that lobbies against minimum wage increases. The restaurant association's study argued that a minimum wage increase would harm the state. It did not actually address whether workers can survive on the $7.25 minimum wage. "It's outrageous that Walker's administration only thought to consult the restaurant industry, and not the workers themselves," said Dan Cantor, the national director of Working Families.

The Alissa Quart book "Squeezed" also included the following, as food for thought:

Some are waking up to the fact it is the wealthy and their purchased politicians who have systematically and deliberately stripped them of power. Deprivations like paltry employee rights, inadequate childcare, ridiculously expensive health care, and non-existent retirement security didn’t just happen. Abstract words like deregulation and globalization become concrete: somebody actually did this to you by promoting policies that leave you high and dry. As Quart indicates, understanding this is the first step to a change of consciousness, and her book is part of this shift.

Michelle Goldberg recently announced in the New York Times that “The Millenial Socialists are Coming,” indicating the intense dislike of traditional politics in urban centers. These young people do not think of things like debt-free college or paid family leave as radical: they see it done elsewhere in the world and don’t accept that it can’t be done in America.

Republicans rush to Purge Voter Rolls...

This is what a conservative activist Supreme Court can do in just a few years. Money is speech, corporations have religious rights, gun deregulation, and this...

A key section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which was designed to protect minority voters from state disenfranchisement, was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013, allowing states to begin making changes affecting voting without first getting federal approval.

Then the US Supreme Court recklessly and mistakenly did this...

In 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court recently approved Ohio's method for purging voters from the rolls. The Obama Justice Department had supported the challengers in the early stages of the court fight, but the Trump administration switched sides and supported the state.

Today? Who could have guessed...oh, not the US Supreme Court who's actions seem strangely removed from reality:

The nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice found that the mostly Southern jurisdictions that had once been required to get changes to voting policies pre-approved by the Justice Department had higher rates of purging than jurisdictions that were not previously subject to pre-clearance. A key section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which was designed to protect minority voters from state disenfranchisement, was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013, allowing states to begin making changes affecting voting without first getting federal approval.

Additionally:

Under the Trump administration, "the Department of Justice has abdicated its responsibility to protect against bad voter purges. They've actually been encouraging jurisdictions to purge more aggressively."

The latest ruling was that last nail in the voting rights coffin:

In 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court recently approved Ohio's method for purging voters from the rolls. The Obama Justice Department had supported the challengers in the early stages of the court fight, but the Trump administration switched sides and supported the state.

The proof is out there for anyone to see just who Republicans are targeting:

Dissenting Justices pointed out the obvious:

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in one of the Supreme Court’s dissenting opinions, agreed. “As one example, amici point to an investigation that revealed that in Hamilton County, ‘African-American-majority neighborhoods in downtown Cincinnati had 10% of their voters removed due to inactivity’ since 2012, as ‘compared to only 4% of voters in a suburban, majority-white neighborhood,’” Sotomayor wrote, citing a brief from the NAACP.

Justice Stephen Breyer, in a dissent joined by the other liberal justices, said, “Using a registrant’s failure to vote is not a reasonable method for identifying voters whose registrations are likely invalid.” Since people tend not to send confirmation notices back to the government, it is not a reliable way to determine whether someone has moved away, Breyer added. Writing for the dissenters, Justice Stephen Breyer said that the majority had misinterpreted the law. He noted that federal statute does not allow someone to be purged from the rolls "by reason of the person's failure to vote. In my view," added Breyer, "Ohio's program does just that."

Breyer claimed the postcard resulting from not voting violated the intent of the original law since it did not say anything about additional follow-up. 

TrumpCare sabotage sees Skyrocketing Premium Increases in Wisconsin!

Don't spend it all in one place? Forget that little piece of advice.

Scott Walker's meager tax cut savings will now go straight into the gigantic increase in health insurance premiums coming in 2019, thanks to Trump's attempts to sabotage the Affordable Care Act. The ACA has seen so many dramatic changes, that it has rightfully earned the name TrumpCare.

Those changes have affected all insurance premiums in the Marketplaces.

CAP: The Trump administration has worked tirelessly to sabotage the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The U.S. Congress’ repeal of the individual mandate penalty and actions to expand the availability of skimpy short-term plans are raising premiums for middle-class families. The Trump administration also slashed funding for enrollment assistance by 72 percent and halted payments for risk adjustment, the federal program that discourages plans from avoiding sicker enrollees. Last year, Trump’s decision to end cost-sharing assistance payments resulted in staggering increases in 2018 marketplace premiums.

So how bad is it getting?

Based on rate information to date, the Center for American Progress estimates that an unsubsidized 40-year-old will pay an extra $970 in marketplace premiums on average in 2019 because of the end of the mandate and the expansion of short-term plans.

Here's a breakdown of the Trump Party's reforms resulting in ADDITIONAL premiums increases per Congressional District. Tax credits will soften the blow for those who still qualify:

Further attacks on the marketplaces, such as the Trump administration’s threat to halt risk adjustment payments and slash funding for enrollment assistance programs could force insurers to raise rates yet higher.

These estimates are based on projections by the Urban Institute of 2019 premium increases due to the Trump administration’s decision to allow for short-term junk plans and Congress’ repeal of the individual mandate. The Urban Institute’s projections account for individual states’ efforts to stabilize the individual market through reinsurance programs, coverage mandates, and regulation of short-term plans. To download the tables with the estimated premium increases attributable to ACA sabotage by congressional district, click here.

Trump, Amazon, Bezos and the endless Twitter lies...

This blog post is going to be easy. From Trump tweets about the Post Office to responding twitter comments, it's all right here...a few things first

Gizmodo: The country’s highest office is spewing misinformation for the apparent purpose of perpetuating a petty personal vendetta. So, here’s what you should know:

Amazon collects and pays a shitload of state taxes. Unless you live in Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, or Oregon, you are paying a sales tax whenever you make a purchase on Amazon. It is likely paying tens of millions of dollars in taxes to state and local governments each year. In total, according to its Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Amazon paid $412 million in taxes in 2016 and, according to CNBC, has a provisional tax expense of around $200 million last year. Let’s not forget, Amazon now owns every Whole Foods store in the country, so that’s even more state and local taxes.

Even worse, Trump came up with this wild one...

"Internet Taxes" aside, here's Trump's latest Amazon/Bezos twitter stream of lies, later disproved by a much smarter twitter community. Note: Amazon is already trying to create its own delivery service, which Trump completely missed because he's not really curious and not a big reader:

CNN (fake news): The company wants to help launch small businesses in the United States dedicated to taking its packages on the last step of their journey: from local Amazon sorting centers to the customers who ordered them ... which ships 5 billion packages a year globally. Amazon uses the USPS for an estimated 40% of its last-mile deliveries, paying bulk pricing. Trump has said he thinks it is a bad deal for the government.

Amazon's new "Delivery Service Partners" and their staff members won't be employed by the tech company. The initial $10,000 costs will go to helping them start an independent business that has to begin with at least five delivery vans and ramp up to 20 vans over an undisclosed period of time. It's also setting aside $1 million to specifically recruit and help military veterans become partners. 

Drivers will be full-time workers instead of contractors, and Amazon will require business owners to give them paid time off and other benefits. Amazon would not say if it was requesting a set minimum wage for the drivers. The company has been building up its own fleet of 7,000 of trucks and 40 airplanes to cover the "middle mile" of delivery. They haul goods between shipping centers and bear Amazon logos, but don't show up at customers' doorsteps. At the moment, that step is mostly handled by one of the many third-parties the company works with, such as FedEx (FDX), United Parcel Service (UPS), and the USPS.

Here's Trump:

The Response:

And the Trump base loves him for it....

Who's the Commie Now...Trump!!! Trump like "Commissar, bribing rural voters hurt by tariffs!!!"

Can't disagree with Ron Johnson over Trump's continued debt digging $12 billion handout to farmers who were hurt by Trump's own tariffs...another costly and reckless self-inflicted wound with no plan B:

JS: Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson ripped the Trump administration's plan ... likening the measure to a Soviet-style economy. 

"This is becoming more and more like a Soviet-type of economy here: Commissars deciding who’s going to be granted waivers, commissars in the administration figuring out how they’re going to sprinkle around benefits."

Johnson's just waking up...

“Time and time again I’ve heard from farmers that they want trade, not aid,. Instead of throwing money at a problem we’ve helped create, the better option is to take action to make it easier for our farmers — and manufacturers —to sell their goods at fair prices to consumers around the world."

Like Scott Walker's $100 Bribe to Voters, Trump Pays Off Farmers: The $12 billion hole is just the start...funny too, Republicans are now supportive of federal taxpayer bailouts, based on their own dreaded "uncertainties," why not? Just in time for the midterm elections. Uncertainties are only bad under the Democrats.

Let the spending begin:

The plan also includes (1.) purchases of surplus agricultural commodities for distribution to food banks. And (2) the government will fund trade promotion to find new export markets for U.S. agricultural products. Asked if he would support the aid to farmers, Sen. Thom Tillis (R., N.C.) said, “I don’t generally like federal bailouts, but if we’re going to have these uncertainties in the agricultural industry…we just have to look at it.”

More naturally, Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin wants to help protect farmers from Trump's completely chaotic actions.

WSJ: Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin backed an aid package to farmers. In a letter to top administration officials, she said: 

“I am calling on the Trump administration to develop a plan that would provide immediate support to farmers unfairly hurt by retaliatory tariffs and include a strategy to maintain the strength of agriculture exports.”

George Will wrote this recently, click here.

Democrats have to discover Populist Resentment soon...

There's an unexplainable mental block that keeps Democratic candidates and politicians from learning anything from the past. If Democrats want to win over conservatives and moderates who actually support most of the Democratic party platform anyway, you don't do it by focus on abortion; or promise to kill the Foxconn deal and jobs, instead of promising to negotiate a better deal for taxpayers. Paul Soglin recommends cutting off Foxconn payments to bring them back to the table.

The Politics of Populist Resentment: The politics of resentment plays off the idea that someone is getting something you're not. That's the ugly side of GOP politics. But there's a good side too.

What we haven't seen is a pronounced Democratic move toward "populist resentment" focusing specifically on the class divide; health care, tax cuts, wage disparity, abortion, and the privileged elite. Democrats need to brainstorm ways to reframe every social issue as a class issue. It's not a scheme or a ploy, it's an honest comparison, nothing like the GOP's agenda.

To drum up right-wing resentment, Republicans had to create myths about the Democrats like how they want the government to make all our decisions for us, or replacing capitalism with socialism blah blah blah.

Since the idea is fairly new to me, I didn't have time to come up with a few quick examples. Thankfully, I've found one created by an actual Democratic candidate on the abortion issue. "Resentment" here is defined as "progressive populism:"

In West Virginia, the leader of that state’s teacher strike, Richard Ojeda (oh-JEH-da), is waging a strong campaign to take an open House seat long held by Republicans. Ojeda, a Democratic state senator who voted for Trump himself, is running as an out and out progressive populist. 

Ojeda is so good that he manages to redefine social issues as class issues. Speaking at a pro-choice rally in Charleston, Ojeda told the crowd that he didn’t really like abortion, but that if it were outlawed, rich women would still get abortions. West Virginians knew exactly what he meant. Indeed, many other supposed social issues, such as pay equity and parental leave, are really class issues if narrated well. Deft Democratic candidates promise hard-pressed voters a better deal on economics, but reflect the views of their districts on hot button social issues.

One more thing...

When Mr. Ojeda graduated from high school, he said he had just three options: “Dig coal, sell dope or join the Army ... I’ve got 13 names on my back of brothers that did not come home,” he told a gathering of teachers and other union members, referring to some of his many tattoos. “They did not die so we could come home and find children struggling, people dying of the opioid crisis and companies and groups greasing people’s pockets.” Ojeda is known for his big personality ... He is George Patton with an Appalachian twang and minus the profanity.

The Economy: Populist resentment can also work well with the countries economic future. Baby Boomers have showered themselves with tax cuts for today, while leaving future generations with a massive bill to pay, despite stagnant wages, increased automation, consolidation, fewer jobs, huge health care costs, a downsized public education system, and crushing student loans that put off home purchases and starting a family. And how will the next generation deal with the now shredded trade policies in a dog eat dog global economy? Our once stable framework is gone now, and the U.S. is on the outside, instead of taking the lead.

Note: There's a certain irony over Scott Walker's Foxconn deal; While it may be a tech company, the deal Republicans made with Foxconn was based on an old 20th-century concept of long-term manufacturing and steady generational employment. That's why it leaves a knot in most peoples stomachs. Industries and jobs are set to change every 10 to 15-year. Without beginning a dialog about a national broadband push to encourage entrepreneurs, converting to green energy, a universal basic income, and national health care, I'm not sure we'll be able to take the shock that comes with a faster-moving global economy.   

School House Rock's Trump Double Negative....

See it here too....

Walker voters suffer flip-flop whiplash again over latest Trump appeasement!!!

Scott Walker, a master career politician, performed another one of his jaw-dropping flip-flops, this time over Russia and China.

It's not surprising Walker has outright abandoned his strong positions against Hillary Clinton so he could appease party leader Trump. It's as easy as saying, "That’s not in my jurisdiction!”

1. So what about Trump's swooning adoration of Putin?

2. Or Trump denying Russia specifically attacked on our elections?

3. It was wrong for Hillary to want to hit the "reset button" with Putin, while Trump does just that claiming it's better to get along with Putin?

4. Trump, like Putin, talks about breaking up NATO all the time, yet Walker is okay with it now? 

Walker was against Putin before he was for him. This video clip covers that and more, like accusing Clinton of ignoring China's human rights violations, but letting Trump do just that AND create a trade war over intellectual property:

JS: “Hillary Clinton tried to appease Vladimir Putin with a reset button. Sensing weakness, Putin today is redrawing the map of Europe with loaded guns. He is dismembering Ukraine, trying to destroy NATO and threatening to use nuclear weapons.” -Scott Walker, during an August 2015 speech at the Citadel military academy in South Carolina. 

How times have changed...

“Under the @BarackObama @HillaryClinton doctrine Putin has found nothing but mush,” Walker tweeted in September 2015.

60 Year old Endbridge Pipeline across Mackinac ticking Time bomb!!!

I found this video just the other day, and now I'm glad I did. A leaking Endbridge double pipeline through the straight of Mackinac would be an environmental disaster. This pipeline is 60 years old...

Here's the story:

WPR: A new report details more than 2.4 million gallons of oil would be released into Lake Michigan and Lake Huron if a worst-case spill took place on Enbridge Energy's Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac.

The single greatest distance of oiled shoreline in one worst-case spill scenario spanned west along the Lower Peninsula of Lake Michigan and Wisconsin, causing an estimated $1.37 billion in damage. The total liability for Enbridge in a worst-case spill could climb to nearly $2 billion when factoring in cleanup costs, lost income and other damages.

Researchers at Michigan Technological University modeled almost 4,400 scenarios. The report includes situations that have little likelihood of taking place, but pose great risks.

National Wildlife Federation spokesman Drew YoungDyke said the report illustrates the danger of having twin pipelines along the lake bed. "There’s 60,000 acres of rare habitat for fish and wildlife that’s threatened and 47 species of concern," he said. "When you look at those numbers and that risk ... that is certainly too much to risk for the marginal benefit that anybody receives from Line 5."

No, Trump does not have a plan or direction, did not write Art of the Deal," and still has no idea what he's doing.

I heard this on NPR. Trump voters are mistaken about his motives, temperament, dealing, and intelligence. You may not sleep after this:

Trump's conversation with "friends?"

Bumbling AG Schimel can't win 20 state ACA lawsuit based on facts!

Bumbling Brad Schimel is your typical Republican Attorney General, leading the way with "bubble world" talking points that take precedence over real-world facts, especially when it comes to health care:

Schimel is leading a 20-state lawsuit aiming to "undo the harmful effects" of Obamacare, according to the state Department of Justice. Schimel filed the suit in February. If Attorney General Brad Schimel is successful in his lawsuit ... Democratic Attorney General candidate Josh Kaul said “That suit is not in the interest of Wisconsinites. It’s wrong.”

Kaul is right of course. Yet Republican AG Brad Schimel considers it a "harmful effect" covering 195,000 more Wisconsinites with healthcare insurance?

195,000 people gained insurance in Wisconsin between 2013 and 2015, which helped bring the uninsured rate down to 5.7%, from 9.4 percent ... a nearly 40% drop

Kidsforward

First, it's TrumpCare now! TRUMPCARE: The ACA's changes under Trump have forced even deep red states like Wisconsin to spend even more money to try and save it.

Walker, an avowed opponent of Obamacare, signed a bill into law that will position the state to receive $150 million in federal dollars to help shore up its healthcare marketplace ... set up a $200 million reinsurance fund, 75 percent of which would be paid for by the federal government.

Trump Party Republicans created this problem, a problem Schimel is now...criticizing? Well, thanks for the help. You can't make this stuff up:

“Obamacare causes premiums to rise and coverage to fall, forcing Wisconsin and other states to take extreme, costly measures to protect their citizens’ health and pocketbooks.” Schimel said that Obamacare has ... cost the state jobs. 

AG Dummy Can't Stop Digging...:

"Josh Kaul may not have known this since he was living on the East and West Coasts, but prior to Obamacare, Wisconsin had among the lowest rate of uninsured people in the nation because of a vibrant free market and a successful high risk pool that provided options for those with pre-existing and serious medical conditions," he said in an email.

Wisconsin's low uninsured rated was the result of a Democratic policy allowing BadgerCare coverage for everyone up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL). Both Walker and Schimel want to take credit for the resulting Wisconsin ranking on coverage. Nope, can't do that. Walker then cut eligibility in half, from 200 percent to 100 percent, leaving those with no discretionary income to buy into the ACA Exchanges.

Wait, Schimel's concept of "successful high-risk pool's" is pure fantasy. Losing $6.9 million in one year is considered a success?

Wisconsin's high-risk pool insured about 21,000 people, with critics saying high prices kept tens or hundreds of thousands of others from accessing it. Those applying for the program had to wait six months before they were allowed into it and a lifetime cap of $2 million. Health Insurance Risk Sharing Plan lost $6.9 million in 2011, roughly a third of which was offset by a federal grant, according to the Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau. The same year, programs in the 35 states lost a total of at least $272 million.

The "harmful effects" Schimel trashed Josh Kaul with have numbers and are pictured here, on the left side of the graph. And Schimel is leading a 20 state lawsuit to repeal the ACA with examples like this?

Dumb Ron Johnson on Health Care: "I think it’s probably more of a privilege." And the privileged have health care, as shown below in the light areas. This was what it was like before the Affordable Care Act, the apparent golden age of the uninsured:

Here's the full Johnson quote, where he paraphrases Rand Paul, which is even crazier. Bottom line: Having a right to health care doesn't force doctors into servitude since they'll already have some form of payment system under universal health care. Seriously, does anyone know a doctor who doesn't want to treat patients?  Johnson's take is sick and inhumane, there's no other way to describe it:

“I think it’s probably more of a privilege. Do you consider food a right? Do you consider clothing a right? Do you consider shelter a right? What we have as rights is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Past that point, we have the right to freedom. Past that point everything else is a limited resource that we have to use our opportunities given to us to afford those things.

“Sen. Rand Paul talked about this on the floor of the Senate. He’s a doctor. He said the minute you consider health care a right, well, who’s going to satisfy that right? And those people who have the skills to satisfy that right, what does that make them if they’re forced to provide you with that rightful product or service?”

Walker and Trump cut education, worry about Labor shortage they created and Access to Affordable "relevant" Education!!!

 It's important to put the following story in context:

Gov. Scott Walker has attended a White House ceremony with President Donald Trump and members of his Cabinet focused on bolstering American workers. President Donald Trump called Gov. Scott Walker "a favorite of mine."

Yes, Walker was a favorite alright:

Democrats seized on Trump calling Walker "a favorite of mine" and noted that Trump had trashed Walker in the past, including when they were both seeking the GOP nomination for president.

But it was the point of the meeting that twisted reality into a pretzel:

Thursday's ceremony was focused on adding jobs and training workers

Jobs without education, a neat Trick: Really, after creating a schooling funding crisis in the U.S., Republicans like Walker and Trump are now worried about the labor shortage they set up for the future? Note: Companies are now returning to the days when they trained their own employees. Who would have thought:

CBPP

WPR: Trump signed an executive order establishing a new council focusing on creating solutions for the country's most urgent workforce issues. The National Council for the American Worker is to be charged with creating a national strategy for making sure Americans have access to affordable, relevant education and job training, and is supposed to focus on creating solutions for the country's most urgent workforce issues.

The Trump administration initially sought much steeper cuts — totaling $8 billion or 13.5 percent, spending cut to education.

DGA: Governors Mary Fallin (R-OK), Doug Ducey (R-AZ), and Matt Bevin (R-KY) have all slashed funding for education and are largely to blame for the poor conditions

Washington Post: Between 2008 and 2015, the total state per-student funding for grade schools dropped in 29 states, less total school funding per student than they were in 2008, with the sharpest drops coming in Republican-led places such as Arizona, Florida, Alabama and Idaho, according to a study last year by the left-leaning think tank Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Public investment in K-12 schools — crucial for communities to thrive and the U.S. economy to offer broad opportunity — has declined dramatically in a number of states over the last decade. Worse, some of the deepest-cutting states have also cut income tax rates, weakening their main revenue source for supporting schools. These cuts risk undermining schools’ capacity to develop the intelligence and creativity of the next generation of workers and entrepreneurs.

Here are more charts highlighting the GOP record on education:

Trump Cronies take over Social Security's administrative law judges, as standards disappear.

We all have Social Security cards. But Trump just crossed that pesky "Security" part off, with a Trump executive order...I thought Republicans hated executive orders?

Trump is installing deep state right-wing cronies to judge you when you can least afford it:

Washington Post: Do you have a Social Security card? If you do, you should be concerned about how a recent executive order signed by President Trump could affect you. On July 10, the White House released an executive order ending a merit-based system for selecting federal administrative law judges, including those who hear Social Security cases. This is a big switch. (Democrats said) “The executive order will allow the Administration to appoint judges based on politics and nepotism rather than competence.” In other words, this is an under-the-radar White House court-packing plan.

Have an injury? Lose a family member? Then you may think this is a big deal: 

You would face an ALJ if you had a problem with the dollar amount in your Social Security retirement account; if there were a question about who is eligible to receive a deceased person’s benefits; or if, because of a workplace accident, injury or illness, you found yourself unable to work and you applied for disability benefits.

In every instance, you would want to know that the judge hearing your case was both competent and impartial ... you also want a judge who isn’t being pressured to deny your case for political reasons or wasn’t placed in the job because of whom they know rather than what they know. Last year alone, judges who adjudicate Social Security cases conducted 605,483 hearings, according to agency statistics. 

Standards Trashed by Trump: Thanks to a recent right-wing Supreme Court decision, Trump toadies decided they could use it as an excuse to destroy the SS's impartiality:

Until this month, federal agencies hired ALJ candidates with at least seven years of litigation experience; they are also required to take a six-part examination conducted by the Office of Personnel Management. Now, as a result of the president’s executive order, an agency that wants to employ an ALJ can recruit any attorney regardless of skill or experience. Competence and impartiality apparently are no longer essential; cronyism and political interference will no longer be taboo.

The Supreme Court overturned a decision by an administrative law judge at the SEC on a technicality, arguing that the judge had not been properly appointed.

Trump Party Holding U.S. Rural and High Speed Broadband Back, lobby to Kill "Too Much Competition."

Net Neutrality is dead. Will broadbands expansion end abruptly? Yes. 

Motherboard: AT&T and Verizon are lobbying for rule changes that will strangle smaller competitors, making US broadband competition even worse.

Like the Rural Electrification Act of 1936, expanding rural broadband should have been the next biggest thing. But Republicans have put telecom profits before American entrepreneurship. It numbs the mind that almost nothing is being done because it cost too much? This is the federal government's responsibility now, since "the marketplace" not just failed, but hasn't done squat.

Telecoms are seeking to repeal this: 

A key part of the 1996 Telecommunications Act required that entrenched ISPs needed to sell access to their copper-line infrastructure—also known as unbundled network elements (UNEs)—to smaller competitors at regulated rates. The goal was to foster broadband competition by giving small ISPs a leg up in a market with often impossible barriers to entry (both political and financial).

But Big Telecom make it all difficult: 

ILECs (incumbent local exchange carriers) like AT&T and Verizon traditionally made getting access to their networks as cumbersome and difficult as possible, then pointed to the resulting difficulties as evidence the plan wasn’t working. ILEC lobbyists also eroded many of the sharing requirements for telco fiber and cable networks with the help of the Supreme Court.

What we're missing out on? Much lower prices like in France...

As the United States slowly discarded the line-sharing plan, other countries embraced it to great success. It’s a major reason why someone in Paris can now get 100 Mbps broadband, TV, and phone service for around $60 per month (or less), while Americans now pay some of the highest prices in the developed world for the same services.

This is an in your face broadband plundering by Big Telecom, at least while Republicans in charge. Keep voting for Trump Party politicians if you want to pay a lot more for cable, or who knows, maybe price you out the internet completely:

But FCC data shows the US broadband competition at higher speeds is virtually nonexistent, something that’s only getting worse as telcos like AT&T and Verizon refuse to upgrade aging DSL lines, giving cable operators like Comcast and Charter a greater broadband monopoly in countless markets nationwide. That lack of competition in turn drives sky high prices, terrible customer service, and even net neutrality violations.

Dane Jasper, CEO of San Francisco-based Sonic:“When incumbents build fiber to the homes and businesses themselves, they can retire copper and eliminate the competitive unbundling obligations,” he notes, creating a “race to build.” “If incumbents can eliminate competitive access without themselves building fiber, that will set communities back, and slow deployment by both incumbents and competitors,” says the CEO.

In a June letter to US Senator John Thune, smaller providers warned that AT&T is seeking price hikes as high as 15% on broadband services should the petition be approved by the FCC.

Trump's "Cheaper, Better" Business Association Health Plans rejected...by Businesses.

The overall idea is simple; an all-payer national health care system, where every doctor is your doctor, every hospital is your hospital, no bills, no co-pays, and no deductibles. Uncomplicated.  

Yet sorry Republicans, who never cared anything about health care, set up the free market "theory" of business association health plans. 

Businesses have wanted them for decades. Now they don't.

I've been writing about these ridiculously convoluted Rube Goldberg Trump Party's "group health care associations" forever. Will they get a group rate? Kinda, but to get there, they have to start the association, create a booking keeping system, billing system, negotiate group policies, require a building or office space, pay hundreds of employees, etc...well, that was a damn awfully expensive idea. And yet...

Money: The Trump administration is making it easier for small firms to band together … so-called association health plans … Companies in the same industry could join regardless of their location ... small employers in different industries could establish an association as long as they are in the same state or metro area ... exempt from certain Obamacare provisions with fewer benefits.

What a deal huh? Businesses have been waiting for two decades?

Unworkable and Not Worth the Effort: It's not happening:

Trump touted the expansion of so-called association health plans as a key plank in his strategy at the 75th anniversary party of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) last month, claiming the group’s members will save “massive amounts of money” and have better care if they join forces to offer coverage to workers.

The NFIB, which vigorously promoted association health plans for two decades, now says it won’t set one up, describing the new Trump rules as unworkable. And the NFIB isn’t the only one: Several of the nationwide trade groups that cheered Trump’s new insurance rules told POLITICO they’re still trying to figure out how to take advantage of them and whether the effort is even worth it.

Oh my god there's more...pretty much saying what I said:

NFIB concluded that establishing an association health plan would be too complex and not worth the effort. The NFIB, which offered only a vague endorsement of the Trump effort last month, now says it’s abandoned any idea of setting up a national plan for its hundreds of thousands of members.“They’ve essentially abandoned a core health care initiative that was a cornerstone lobbying effort for two decades,” said one person familiar with the NFIB’s inner workings.

Other trade groups, like the National Retail Federation, have raised similar concerns, saying it‘s unlikely to form a national plan ... The National Association of Realtors, which had long lobbied for expanding association health plans, downplayed the idea of starting one anytime soon.“The development of an AHP will be a long process, and at this time we do not have a definitive timeline.”

State regulators in even some red states have voiced skepticism and taken steps to limit association health plans, pointing to their history of lax regulation and fraud before Obamacare set more stringent insurance standards. 

Weaponizing the First Amendment with the Politics of Resentment!

Democrats would be wise to work "resentment" into their discussions of what should be a winning American agenda. I wrote about it here, based on an incredible tweet storm by Republican Bruce Bartlett. It was a blog post that got almost no views. I guess Democrats already knew this stuff.

I'm not kidding...resentment, resentment, resentment!!! Please, it works. Scott Walker reversed a century and a half of progress with it. From NPR/WPR's Fresh Air, and edited to feature "resentment:"



Republicans are now using RESENTMENT for everything...it's the new "uncertainty." 

1. Big Monied Conservatives Higher Calling...and Spending: It's no secret that big monied conservatives are now using the courts to weaponize the First Amendment with the politics of resentment, openly using it to justify "dark money." Would I kid you?

Donor disclosure to the IRS "can easily be abused to suppress First Amendment rights," said David Keating, president of the anti-regulation Institute for Free Speech.

"Citizens shouldn't fear harassment or persecution over their beliefs," said Nathan Nascimento of Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, a business association that's a financial hub of the Koch brothers' political network.

Mitch McConnell said the new rules would prevent Americans from being "bullied for exercising their First Amendment rights."

...resulting in this jaw-dropping administrative rule:

Dark Money Rules: The Trump administration has weakened a donor disclosure rule for tax-exempt groups, possibly letting more foreign cash into U.S. politics. Under the new rules 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations and 501(c)(6) business associations will not (have to disclose donors). Critics call these groups, which are sometimes used by secretive political funds, "dark money."

The voting public left and right ended up being road kill over the issue of money in politics, which they are firmly against...

 Limit campaign spending.

But it's still okay because these dark money groups - like the NRA now a Russian front group and the US Chamber of Commerce...are all on the right:

The 501(c)(4) social welfare groups have been a rising force in politics, especially on the right. There is also a smattering of heavily financed 501(c)(6) business associations in politics, again on the right.

Heck, it's not written in the IRS code, so why create a supposed "national database." Russian influence over our elections? Who cares. From NPR, the whole story:



The First Amendment and Free Speech: So let's wipe out any and all control we ever had over our government.

2. Allowing foreign nations to attack candidates in U.S. elections because they too have free speech rights?

Politico: Why Banning Russian Facebook Ads Might Be Impossible: Conservative judges are skeptical of regulating foreign interference in our elections, citing free-speech concerns. Will the Supreme Court toss out Senate efforts to crack down? 

A three-judge court construed the statute barring foreign election spending to apply only to express advocacy ... it had to read the statute this way thanks to another Roberts Court opinion, which held that reading the issue advocacy test broadly would violate the First Amendment.

Make no mistake, resentment based on “victimization” is also now registering off the Richter scale since Trump legitimized hate speech. These mouth drooling Trump dependent worshippers really do think racist and bigoted epithets are protected free speech rights, and that every other protected freedom pales in comparison or disappears completely.

You wouldn't be partisan to say these beliefs are only a characteristic of the repressed and fearful conservatives now holding the reigns of government because they've got the supposed higher political calling.

3. The stacked bought-and-paid-for conservative Wisconsin State Supreme Court upheld a professor's free speech rights to publish the personal information and email of an ideological opponent and student teacher so others could harass and threaten her. And he did it twice:

As the University explained: "The professor used his personal blog to mock a student teacher, intentionally exposing her name and contact information to a hostile audience that sent her vile and threatening messages."

The following example is just a courthouse argument away from redefining the First Amendment in our conservative stacked judicial system based on the Federalist Society's concept of "originalism:"

California student claims he’s a victim after losing his athletic scholarship for shouting homophobic slurs at civil rights protesters. Bronson Harmon attended California Polytechnic State University on a wrestling scholarship, which was rescinded after viral videos showed him using anti-LGBT slurs while marching with his father, reported The Tribune. “Saying what I said is definitely not the right thing. I still feel like my freedom of speech was taken away, and I don’t think my scholarship should have been revoked over something like that” ... is shown flipping off a demonstrator and screaming, “F*ck you, f*ggot.” Another video shows Harmon shouting “Trump 2020” at protesters. The Harmons and a friend also started a fight with demonstrators, according to police.

Harmon blames the demonstrators for his use of the homophobic slur. “I totally regret it. I got caught up in the heat of the moment. I was there to peacefully protest the things that we believe, and people were harassing us, spitting on us and calling us Nazis.”

Candidate Nicholson trashes parents for maxing out donations to Tammy Baldwin!

Free speech and the First Amendment has been weaponized by the Trump Party. Not only is it being used to spread bigotted racist hate speech, but it's also been transformed from the traditional verbal/written speech into money.  

There are even different rules for Democrats, who should not be allowed to spend money on campaigns because they're doing it for all the wrong reasons...it's right there in the originalist reading of the First Amendment I think.

Democratic voter spending "Represents Intolerance:" Senate candidate Kevin Nicholson blasted his own parent's free speech right, describing their support and donations to Sen. Tammy Baldwin as a “representation of the intolerance” in the Democratic Party...all because they gave the max amount? Don't tell Koch's or Adelson:

The Hill: Wisconsin GOP Senate candidate Kevin Nicholson slammed his own parents for making the “maximum contribution” of $2,700 to his Democratic opponent in a fiery editorial published by Fox News on Monday ... accused his parents ...
“My parents have since turned their back on me, my wife, their grandchildren, and their extended family,” Nicholson wrote in the editorial. He pointed to his parents' donation as a “representation of the intolerance” in the Democratic Party.

“Adding to this, they decided to make the maximum contribution to my Democrat opponent in my campaign for U.S. Senate in Wisconsin, an intentional personal blow that made headlines across the country. It was deliberate – and it is a true representation of the intolerance of a political philosophy that stands on the false platform of tolerance.”

Trumputinesque!!!

Well, this was a disaster too...Trump walks back his manly adlib moment:



But this doesn't make all the difference, while it shows you how absurd this walk back is. And yes, it clarifies everything:

Trump said he was not convinced it was Moscow. "I have President Putin, he just said it's not Russia ... I don't see any reason why it would(n't) be.  "

Trump was "for" his comments before he was "against" them:

Earlier Tuesday, Trump blamed the media for misinterpreting his remarks in Helsinki and defended the Putin news conference by citing the thoughts of a rare supporter who stuck up for him: Sen. Rand Paul.

"Thank you @RandPaul, you really get it!" Trump tweeted, citing a comment by the Kentuckian that "the President has gone through a year and a half of totally partisan investigations - what’s he supposed think?”

It's all here, a compilation of clips proving what we've been hearing for the last year and a half makes yesterday the big reveal:

  

MSNBC's Katie Tur: That doesn't make any sense. If you want to say that he meant it would not be Russia, he forgot to say "not," he sees no reason why it would not be Russia, then you would have had to put a blindfold over your eyes and ear plugs in your ears and not heard the rest of that news conference -- which sided very strongly, to use a word that the president likes, with Vladimir Putin.