Wisconsin Protests

[turk]

Is every corporation bad? Are they evil at the gate, just being corporations? And vise-versa: are all unions good? This is the through-line of the story apparently, as told by our media, despite elections which don't add up the same way (i.e. everyone supports the teachers' unions' collective bargaining rights for pensions and health care). It seems everyone doesn't necessarily think so. But wait: The Koch Bros. duped half the people with T.V. ads. Nuance indeed.

[ruckman101]

Pretty shady supreme court election results in Wisconsin.


neal

[turk]

Let's see what happens next. I worked as a data transmitter at the last election (4-5) here in Cook County. Lemme tell ya, they have redundant back-up of all results. That's what me job was. Final results aren't really known for a while. This just from experience. Everything is on paper, and two different digital tallies. We re-entered all the results from 125 precincts (in one township) to the main server, after they were already tallied once. There were some "partial" results, which we kept eyes out for and made sure they were tallied. The system either says "results already entered", or it uploads the partials. Then after us, the last in line, another set of people put all the plastic bags with the data cartridges in boxes in order. I took out all the paper Election Documents and put them in a separate envelope. This after transmission. Then it all gets shipped to headquarters downtown if there is any questions. Then they can do a re-count if there are any questions. No one was working politically. None of us knows what the results are on the cartridges or on the paper documents. I don't work for the county. It's a one time gig.

[Lanval]

Is every corporation bad?

Nah, just almost every corporation is bad. Here's an example where unions would make a difference right now.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-i ... 1610.story

See how the employees are trying to unionize? That's because a union would allow them to make, oh, I don't know... how about at least 75% of what their Swedish counterparts are making. Don't even ask about vacation though.

The reason that WI wants to kill the unions is because it cuts into profits. The same reason that IKEA, that oh-so-noble corporation is willing to hire a legal firm (which costs many, many dollars) to avoid having to pay a reasonable wage. It's cheaper not to pay the union wage.

And before you point out that they need to stay in business, their counterparts in Sweden are making twice as much, with five weeks of vacation. And they're still working. Which means their work is profitable.

L.

[ruckman101]

Wow. We're already a third-world country. Minimum wage in Sweden is $19 an hour? Woof.

Wow, digging Sweden's health care system, too. Check it out. Nine percent of your taxes get you 97 percent of your health costs paid by Sweden. Sweet. I bet it's a single payer system.

Swedish unions should be outraged. What was the tirk phrase? "So, even corporations have a vested interest in compensating their workforce fairly to get the best efficiency - in the majority of cases."

Unless they can get away with not doing it. Relying on the kindness of corporations is a suicide note.

I hear Chicago had some union solidarity in support of brethren in Wisconsin and elsewhere in Daley Square this past Saturday. I like it. Wake up and smell the coffee, it ain't Starbucks.



neal

[turk]

Is posting online an excuse for hyperbole or are we convinced of its persuasive utility.

[airkooledchris]

Kathy Nickolaus is too stupid to try and pull anything this shady - again. Right? Either that or she's got some serious hardware danglin'

Sample ballots printed for Waukesha County executive special election give voted unintended advice: who to vote for. Published in several newspapers this week (October 14th,2005) sample ballots promoting Tuesday’s contest between James Dwyer and Dan Vrakas include a mark signaling a vote for Dwyer.

The red-faced county clerk Kathy Nickolaus said, the gaffe occurred when her office sent some newspapers the same sample ballots that had been marked to test the voting machines. “It was human error” she said…. The tainted sample ballots are being published in newspapers in Brookfield, Menomonee Falls, Mukwanago and Sussex. Along with both candidates’ names and detailed instruction on how to complete a ballot, there it is — a hand drawn solid line designating a vote for Dwyer.

The people who cast the votes don’t decide an election, the people who count the votes do.
Joseph Stalin

[steve74baywin]

Wow. We're already a third-world country. Minimum wage in Sweden is $19 an hour? Woof.

Wow, digging Sweden's health care system, too. Check it out. Nine percent of your taxes get you 97 percent of your health costs paid by Sweden. Sweet. I bet it's a single payer system.

Swedish unions should be outraged. What was the tirk phrase? "So, even corporations have a vested interest in compensating their workforce fairly to get the best efficiency - in the majority of cases."

Unless they can get away with not doing it. Relying on the kindness of corporations is a suicide note.

I hear Chicago had some union solidarity in support of brethren in Wisconsin and elsewhere in Daley Square this past Saturday. I like it. Wake up and smell the coffee, it ain't Starbucks.



neal

It does seem like they are slapping us down hard.
For many years world money has funded and built up the US to do exactly what it has been doing. The US is a giant propaganda machine for the world, being a leader in communications of all types, and it is also the military, army, empire building force.
The way I see it now, they have a good World control system in place. Between things like credit score, federal ID's, Home/motherland security and the UN they do not have to worry about certain people in this country. They have systems and tools in place to assure they will have the people they need to continue gaining control of the world. They can tell who is a stooge and is totally under their thumb.
In the next generation or two if they continue to get there way, anyone who doesn't follow every rule and dot all I's and T's will fall through the cracks and die out. Those who are more like conditioned robots will continue to get money and care needed to survive.

[airkooledchris]

Monday, April 11, 2011
(Waukesha County Democratic Party)On Tuesday night, I received a voice message from someone in the office of Clerk Kathy Nickolaus informing me of a Wednesday canvass meeting, which I returned the next morning and said I would be able to report into the canvass by noon – which I did. Normally the canvass would begin at 9am on Thursday, as has been the general practice for many years. No one explained why they were beginning the canvass on Wednesday, just to please report immediately.

Before this telephone call, I had not been contacted as the designated Democratic observer, and I saw no public notice of the abnormal canvass time. The phone call simply instructed me to report by noon to begin the canvass, which I did. The canvass then proceeded as normal, with no glaring irregularities or mention of a possible 15,000 vote error in Brookfield City.

On Thursday, I then showed up as per normal procedure at 9am and the canvass again went normally and concluded sometime between 4pm and 5pm. During the course of the day, the issue of minor vote corrections in New Berlin and Lisbon came up, but again nothing of a historic nature or reflecting glaring irregularities. In fact, the matter of vote totals in Brookfield City came up specifically during the course of Thursday’s canvass. In retrospect, it seems both shocking and somewhat appalling there was no mention of discovery of this 15,000 vote “human error” that ultimately had the potential to tip the balance of an entire statewide election. How is this possible?

Once the canvass had been completed and the results were finalized, I was called into Kathy’s office along with Pat (the Republican observer) and told of an impending 5:30pm press conference. It was at that point that I was first made aware of an error Kathy had made in Brookfield City. Kathy told us she thought she had saved the Brookfield voter information Tuesday night, but then on Wednesday she said she noticed she had not hit save. Kathy didn’t offer an explanation about why she didn’t mention anything prior to Thursday afternoon’s canvass completion, but showed us different tapes where numbers seemed to add up, though I have no idea where the numbers were coming from. I was not told of the magnitude of this error, just that she had made one. I was then instructed that I would not say anything at the press conference, and was actually surprised when I was asked questions by reporters.

The reason I offer this explanation is that, with the enormous amount of attention this has received over the weekend, many people are offering my statements at the press conference that the “numbers jibed” as validation they are correct and I can vouch for their accuracy. As I told Kathy when I was called into the room – I am 80 years old and I don’t understand anything about computers. I don’t know where the numbers Kathy was showing me ultimately came from, but they seemed to add up. I am still very, very confused about why the canvass was finalized before I was informed of the Brookfield error and it wasn’t even until the press conference was happening that I learned it was this enormous mistake that could swing the whole election. I was never shown anything that would verify Kathy’s statement about the missing vote, and with how events unfolded and people citing me as an authority on this now, I feel like I must speak up.

either absolute corruption, or absolute idiocy - either way Kathy has got to GO (or promoted somewhere higher up Walker/Koch's chain of command)

[Bleyseng]

Is every corporation bad? .

No, its just the corporations have taken their influence to another level. If GE can make $12.5 billion or whatever the number is and not pay a DIME of Federal Taxes on that profit its criminal...No wonder the 1% are laughing all the way to their private resorts and islands as the rest of us are chumps paying for them to live off the fruits of our labor.

[ruckman101]

Exactly. If the corporate tax rate is 90 percent, it's pointless if there are loopholes in place that allow them to pay nothing, and get a generous tax return.

[ruckman101]

oops, speaking of nuance, GE says no, despite paying not one thin dime in taxes, that 3.2 billion generous tax refund was actually legally defined as a tax benefit, not a refund. So there. What's the prob?

Man on man do they have a good legal team. Does it rival their legal tax employees team of close to 1k employees? No doubt. Specialized interests and all, beyond merely paying taxes, the tax legal team is no doubt a small group in the grand scheme of legal representation for GE.


neal

[steve74baywin]

I am not familiar with this protest.
The union argument can be one of the harder ones.
Using my usual Libertarian approach to dissect the issue.
Basing things on property rights, property as things owned including oneself.
A person who owns a company, owns it, it is their property.
They offer job at set wage. A person can choose it, or not.
The people who have chosen to work there decide to form a union, they can do that.
They can decide that together as a whole they can strike, not go to work.
The owner of the company can then decide to work with them, not have any work
going on, or hire new people....
In other words, if property rights alone are observed, and no government intervention or laws
to give either side an advantage or disadvantage, I see no problem. I think this is best.
There would be no issue. It seem too simple to me. People, property, free choice.
Choice to work somewhere, form or join a union if you want, work or don't work, owner makes
choice, perhaps he will realize he can't find people better and should work with them, which would also mean they have leg to stand on, or maybe he will find there our thousands standing at the door, who can do this job and are willing to for the same pay, which would sort of mean the people striking don't have a leg to stand on. Maybe he thinks he can do without these people and is wrong, his business will suffer, maybe he will learn, if not, his loss, his life, his choice, his property.

[ruckman101]

Ouch, Scottie got a spanking in Washington DC.

http://www.c-span.org/Events/Oversight- ... 7420883-1/


neal

[turk]

An hour into the 3 hour + video and I still don't see what yer talkin' about. I actually have more respect for Walker than I did before watching the video. Perhaps you'd explain what the spanking was?