Massachusetts (Blue) or Oklahoma (Red)? The Choice Is Clear.

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Practice Your Skepticism

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We're #1

 

Blue Balls

 Donald Trump Is Sucking the Life-Blood Out of America

Dignity, Doing the Right Thing, and Sweatshops

Pete Educating Ignorant Republicans Again And Again

Screenshots of Wisdom

The Police

The Inappropriately High Cost Of Police

This Is How Much Major Cities Prioritize Police Spending Versus Everything Else

Growing calls to “defund the police,” explained

Why Rising Police Budgets Aren’t Making Cities Safer

Cities Spend More and More on Police. Is It Working?

How Much Do U.S. Cities Spend Every Year On Policing?

City Coffers, Not Police Budgets, Hit Hard By the High Cost of Brutality

What a World Without Cops Would Look Like

NEW YORK CITY AND LOS ANGELES SLASH BUDGETS — BUT NOT FOR POLICE

POLICE BUDGETS PUT OTHER RESOURCES IN JEOPARDY

The Price of Defunding the Police

SPENDING BILLIONS ON POLICING, THEN MILLIONS ON POLICE MISCONDUCT

Federal Programs and The Real Cost of Policing

Exploitative Revenues, Law Enforcement, and the Quality of Government Service

Police Misconduct Is Increasingly a Financial Issue

No More Cop Unions

Making Policing More Affordable

Measuring the Costs of Police Services 

Police and Corrections Expenditures

How Cities Offload the Cost of Police Brutality

The Burden of Municipal Police Costs

Bernie

Education Can Be The Answer

The U.S. is a highly educated country. We've taken pride in knowledge, science, understanding, innovation and entrepreneurialism. Yet, we've also taken this beyond the reach of the job market. We have bank managers that studied literature in college. We've told everyone they need to get at least a four-year degree to be successful. Despite the fact that most jobs only need a high school diploma, some on-the-job training and/or an associates or trade degree.

We've used the more education mantra as more of a club than a means to an end. We should be educating and training for needs not ego. It sounds nice for everyone to have a medical doctorate or a juris doctorate, but the world needs more than doctors and lawyers. 

An op-ed in Urban Milwaukee echoed the more education mantra: State’s Future Depends on Knowledge Economy

Four of the top five occupations with the highest projected numeric change in employment have salaries under $30,000 per year. 13 of the 20 earn less than $40,000 annually. And many of these only require a high school diploma or on-the-job training.

Get all the education you can. More education is always better. But have an endgame. Find a career. Find something you enjoy. Don't go ridiculously in debt chasing the education savior. People who would have been better at trade school becoming an electrician, plumber or mechanic end up with Bachelors and Masters degrees. 

Too many pundits love writing about the creative class, entrepreneurship and the knowledge-based economy. All somehow magically dependent on more and more education. And, as if this was the majority of jobs and workers. This elitist view ignores the majority of employees. Which, again, have only a high school diploma, some on-the-job training and/or an associates or trade degree. Only one-third of the workforce has a bachelor's degree or higher.

For Further Reading:

Projections of occupational employment, 2016–26

Occupations with the most job growth

Fastest Growing Occupations

Fastest growing occupations

The Dumbing Of America

This sure is Trump's America.

Reading Scores on National Exam Decline in Half the States

What Socialism Really Looks Like

Sunday Reading

What Happened To Wisconsin?
Final Walker Jobs Gap - Nearly 164,000 Jobs!
Corporate Tax Deals May Be Public, But What Happens Next Is Often Secret
Washington Post Says Republicans Oppose Debt
In Praise Of Budget Deficits
Milwaukee Does Have A Socialist Past, But Democrats Have Other Reasons To Show Wisconsin Some Love
Elizabeth Warren's War On Big Tech Puts Her Ahead As The Candidate To Take On Corporate Power
Microsoft Sues Foxconn And Says It Owes Royalty Payments Plus Interest
It's Time To Take Fox News's Destructive Role In America Seriously
America's Fox News Problem
12 States Spend Less On Schools Now Than Before The Recession

Still Bernin'

Not In My Backyard

Bay View is in a tizzy over a recent outbreak of burglaries and vandalism.

Smashed windows, stolen goods, and on and on. None of that is fun or fair. But life's not fair. Being born into and living in poverty isn't fair. (Yes, I know, this isn't all impoverished youths. Some of it is, no doubt, dirtbags being dirtbags for entirely different reasons.)

The answer to increased crime isn't "we must cut everything except for the police." Yet most of what passes for discussion on this matter is - "more police!"

The police and fire departments in the City of Milwaukee already garner nearly 90% of the entire City budget!

Milwaukee also has twice as many police officers as similar sized cities.

The answer isn't more money for police and more police.

Why don't we try policies that benefit education, health care, infrastructure and those most in need? Rather than giving millions and billions to the Brewers, the Bucks, Foxconn, Harley Davidson, Mercury Marine, etc. How about the ridiculously rich of the community help to teach the under-educated, provide transportation options to available jobs and arrange gainful employment? Having such a privileged place in society, how about helping to be part of the solution, rather than just pointing fingers, screaming about the problem and only seeing "lock 'em up!" as the solution.

How can we ask working-poor and working-class people to pay taxes for Foxconn billionaires and then lose our shit when some poor kid steals or ruins something nice? Can we devalue life any more? Oh, such a lovely, caring Christian country. Give to the rich, take from the poor and then get all bent out of shape when the poor person decides they'd like a piece of the pie, too. If you think this is making American great again, you're a fucking idiot!

The other sad part of this drama (as it plays out on neighborhood groups on Facebook among the victims of robbery or vandalism) is how the same people decrying the increase in crime, didn't give a shit when it was happening in other parts of town. Then, it was somebody else's problem.

But now that their shit is getting stolen, we all need to pitch-in to buy more police to protect their shit...no matter the cost. Suddenly these bastions of conservatism, low-taxation and a hands-off government, now they're full-blown socialists dependent on the government to protect their property. Costs no longer matter. Spend whatever it takes!

Are we under some delusion that we can hire a police officer - without any increase in taxes - for every street, every alley, every block and that, somehow, we're going to eliminate all bad things?

Too much of my taxes already go toward the Pentagon and the local police presence. More men (88% of officers are men) walking and driving around carrying guns doesn't solve any of these problems. It just squeezes budgets with increased police costs.

If you don't solve why people aren't working, why the jobs aren't there, we're just continuing a cycle of crime and incarceration. If you don't give a person something to live for, a reason, something to have some sense of self about, what do you expect from that person? How do expect that person to function in society?

All we ever hear about is how high taxes are. Taxes must be cut. They are such a burden. Politicians get elected promising to cut taxes.

Yet, somehow more money needs to appear so we can police our way out of the problem. How much are you willing to have your taxes raised?

Those of you that feel more police are the answer, start sending those checks to the City. The tax return you're about to get - send it to the City. The next raise you get at work - fork that amount over to the City. You get the point - put your money where your mouth is. Services (like the police...especially the police) cost money.

We already pay too much and have too many police. If you'd like to double-down on this always-more-police experiment, you know where to send the money.

The Scott Walker Wrecking-Ball Crew Update

Fiscal bureau: Scott Walker's budget leaves $1.1 billion hole starting in 2019

Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal for the state’s next budget creates a larger structural deficit than previously thought, nearly $1.1 billion, in the ensuing budget cycle beginning in 2019, the state’s nonpartisan fiscal office said Thursday.

The Legislative Fiscal Bureau released the findings in a memo made public late Thursday.

It shows Walker’s plan for the 2017-19 budget, which back-loads spending and tax cuts into its second fiscal year, leaves a structural deficit of $1.1 billion that lawmakers would have to erase in crafting the 2019-21 budget.

Failed Presidential Candidate Scott Walker Wants to Hack Public Schools

But if we're talking about governors who easily dispose of public education, from kindergarten through graduate school, we have to go to Wisconsin. That's where Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage this particular Midwest subsidiary, has acted with unconcealed contempt for everything that Wisconsin once stood for in terms of educating its citizens. 

First of all, the man couldn't quite catch up to the B.A. that hung on my wall has determined that teachers should leave those kids alone! From The Washington Post:

A proposal in Walker's new budget plan calls for ending the state's current minimum requirements — 437 hours for kindergarten, 1,050 hours for elementary schools and 1,137 hours for secondary schools — and allowing school districts to do what they want in terms of seat hours for students. Districts and schools would then be judged on their state report cards, which are produced annually by the Department of Public Instruction, based largely on standardized test scores. During a recent visit to a school in Waukesha to talk up his budget proposal, he said: "To me, the report card is the ultimate measure. It's not how many hours you are sitting in a chair."

Gov. Scott Walker's budget proposal axes state farm-to-school post

The cafeterias in the Germantown School District take a decidedly fresh turn in the fall.

For as long as it lasts, food and nutrition director Shelley Juedes brings in a bountiful array of fresh produce: scrumptious apples from nearby Rim's Edge Orchard and fresh vegetables — broccoli, onions, potatoes and more — from longtime area farmer Lenny Semerad.

"What a major difference it is to have that fresh produce instead of getting it from a vendor where it might have sat in a warehouse for weeks," said Juedes, who would like to increase what she buys from local farmers if she could figure out how to do it.

"It's fresher. It looks more appetizing," she said. "It's great for the kids, and it benefits the local farmers, too. It's a win-win."

That win-win was exactly what the Legislature had in mind when it created the Farm to School office in the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection in 2009.

Since then, advocates say, the Wisconsin office has become the gold standard for the farm-to-school movement nationally, connecting growers and schools, helping to secure hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants, improving children's nutrition and knowledge of agriculture, and pumping millions of dollars into the state's economy.

Now, they say, that may be in jeopardy.

Gov. Scott Walker has proposed cutting the office's now-vacant coordinator position and 15-member advisory council as part of his 2017-'19 budget, a move that would save $132,800 over the biennium.

Walker wants Wisconsin to be first state to stop dictating how much time kids should go to school

If Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has his way, the Badger State will become the first to stop requiring students in public schools to spend a minimum number of hours in class.

A proposal in Walker’s new budget plan calls for ending the state’s current minimum requirements — 437 hours for kindergarten, 1,050 hours for elementary schools and 1,137 hours for secondary schools — and allowing school districts to do what they want in terms of seat hours for students.

Districts and schools would then be judged on their state report cards, which are produced annually by the Department of Public Instruction, based largely on standardized test scores. During a recent visit to a school in Waukesha to talk up his budget proposal, he said: “To me, the report card is the ultimate measure. It’s not how many hours you are sitting in a chair.”

Scott Walker wants to let schools cut down on class time. That’s really risky.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker doesn’t seem to care how many hours schoolkids are in the classroom, as long as they can pass standardized tests — a proposal that could go against the academic consensus that time in the classroom matters.

In his recent budget proposal, Walker called for state lawmakers to get rid of the minimum requirement for how many hours students spend learning each year. That would make Wisconsin the first state without any guidelines for how long students must spend in the classroom. Typically, states require at least 180 school days, and Wisconsin law currently requires 1,050 instructional hours for elementary school students at public and private voucher schools and at least 1,137 for middle and high school students.

Scott Walker Moves To Kill A Century-Old Nature Magazine, And Readers Are Furious

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) plans to do away with a nearly century-old, state-run nature magazine, sparking outrage among critics who see it as part of an ongoing anti-environment agenda.

Walker’s 2017-2019 budget, which he unveiled in February, calls for suspending publication of Wisconsin Natural Resources next year. The magazine, a product of the state Department of Natural Resources, has kept Wisconsinites informed about hunting and fishing opportunities, species conservation, environmental issues and much more since 1919.

The Walker administration argues it doesn’t fit the department’s core mission.

“While the magazine has a loyal following and is supported by subscriptions, it became clear as our staff continued to examine what they did and why they do it ... that we at DNR are stewards of resources and not magazine publishers,” department Secretary Cathy Stepp said during a legislative hearing late last month. She added that her agency’s time is better spent focusing on digital communication.

But a former department secretary, two former editors of the magazine and dozens of Wisconsin residents have blasted the governor’s plan.

“Anyone that says communication and education is not a core value of a natural resource agency doesn’t get it,” George Meyer, who served as natural resources secretary from 1993 to 2003, told Wisconsin Public Radio.

Scott Walker’s Plan to Kill Nature Magazine Spurs Backlash

Dozens of Wisconsin residents have contacted the office of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to protest his plan to kill a nearly 100-year-old, self-supporting state magazine that has previously been purged of content touching on politically sensitive environmental issues, according to records obtained by The Progressive.

Walker’s biennial state budget, unveiled in early February, included a call to suspend publication of Wisconsin Natural Resources in early 2018. The bimonthly magazine has nearly 90,000 paid subscribers and is produced by the state’s Department of Natural Resources. Walker’s office claims that doing away with the magazine will let the DNR focus more on its core mission.

The Robot That Takes Your Job Should Pay Taxes, Says Bill Gates

Robots are taking human jobs. But Bill Gates believes that governments should tax companies’ use of them, as a way to at least temporarily slow the spread of automation and to fund other types of employment. 

It’s a striking position from the world’s richest man and a self-described techno-optimist who co-founded Microsoft, one of the leading players in artificial-intelligence technology. 

In a recent interview with Quartz, Gates said that a robot tax could finance jobs taking care of elderly people or working with kids in schools, for which needs are unmet and to which humans are particularly well suited. He argues that governments must oversee such programs rather than relying on businesses, in order to redirect the jobs to help people with lower incomes. The idea is not totally theoretical: EU lawmakers considered a proposal to tax robot owners to pay for training for workers who lose their jobs, though on Feb. 16 the legislators ultimately rejected it. 

“You ought to be willing to raise the tax level and even slow down the speed” of automation, Gates argues. That’s because the technology and business cases for replacing humans in a wide range of jobs are arriving simultaneously, and it’s important to be able to manage that displacement. “You cross the threshold of job replacement of certain activities all sort of at once,” Gates says, citing warehouse work and driving as some of the job categories that in the next 20 years will have robots doing them. [source]

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Obama's Accomplishments