No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for October, 2010

October 31, 2010

Rejection? How About Repudiation?

by @ 20:03. Filed under Politics - National.

Arianna Huffington says the upcoming election results does not mean America is rejecting Democrats.

You mean like Obama’s election wasn’t a mandate?

Reading Smoke Signals

by @ 19:30. Filed under Politics - National.

I shared with you a week ago that Barbara Ma’am Boxer’s success was likely tied to the success of Proposition 19, the pot legalization referendum. In what will likely be the last poll on the Proposition, The Field Poll shows mixed results for California.

Indeed, Proposition 19 now looks like it will go down in defeat. At least via a referendum, there will be no pot legalization in California. I’m sure that will be a relief to President Obama who could have been caught between popular support for weed and his ego crying “I’m the law here!” Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Proposition 19 is going to go down by a wide enough margin to benefit America as a whole.

The most recent polling on the Boxer/Fiorina race was done by Rasmussen. The poll showed Boxer with a 3 point lead but still within the margin of error. The most recent Rasmussen poll shows little change from a poll by Rasmussen a week prior and from SurveyUSA about 10 days ago. Both of these earlier polls also had Boxer in low, single digit leads.

In looking at the partisan splits, I see the same questions and issues regarding the California polls that have been raised elsewhere; will the turn outs look like previous elections or will it look like something different?

in 2008, the California partisan split was 30% Republican, 42% Democrat and 28% Independent. The Field Poll split supposed a turnout of R, D, I as 39%, 44% and 17% respectively. Finally, the SurveyUSA poll show the split as 34%, 42% 21%.

Given the “historical” nature of the 2008 election (I kid you not, I heard an African American describe the reason for his Obama vote that way on Hannity the other night), it would seem like a larger Dem turnout this year would be unlikely. Of course, the pot proponents will argue that the turnout is due to the referendum. However, I find it hard to believe that the pot referendum would pull a greater percentage of Dems than the Gay Marriage referendum combined with “historical” voting opportunities.

If I had to guess, and this is only a gut, I believe that both Field Poll and Survey USA have Dems over represented in their polls, that’s the good news. The bad news is that even if I adjust the Dems back to the party split of 41% of the 2006 race, the Senate race does not tip toward Fiorina.

It looks to me like the only way for Fiorina to win is if the Republicans and Independents out GOTV the Dems. How will we know? The Dems, and especially the young Dems, are strongly tied to support of the Pot Proposition. If you see reports on election night that Proposition 19 is going down by at least 10% it means the potheads haven’t turned out or that those opposed to the referendum have overwhelmed those who support the referendum. In either event, 10% will be the smoke signal to indicate whether Ma’am Boxer will return for another session or whether California will join the rest of the Union and send President Obama a rebuke “from sea to shining sea!”

October 29, 2010

Interview with 7th Senate District Republican candidate Jess Ripp

by @ 16:53. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Earlier today, I sat down with Jess Ripp, the Republican nominee for the 7th Senate District seat. The seat is currently held by Democrat Jeff Plale, but he will be leaving after being defeated by fellow Democrat Chris Larson in a brutal primary.

We discussed why he got into politics, various issues including transportation, taxation, the major role the Milwaukee area has in the state’s economy, and a couple of surprise endorsements from the mayors of Oak Creek and South Milwaukee.

Click here to listen (and forgive the low quality; Starbucks is not exactly conducive to good sound quality).

I know it is a longshot because the district contains both the most-liberal part of Milwaukee (the East Side and the UWM campus) and traditionally-Democrat union cities such as Cudahy, St. Francis and South Milwaukee. However, I remember that the 2002 taxpayer revolt against the corruptocrats in Milwaukee County that put Scott Walker in as County Executive began in Cudahy, and there can’t be a larger divide between two candidates than there is between Ripp and Larson.

Related: Rick Sense of The Inside Scoop also interviewed Ripp today.

Poll-a-copia – Last call for PPP

I really should have waited one more day to do a poll-a-copia because Public Policy Polling released their last pre-election poll taken of 1,372 likely voters between 10/26 and 10/28 this morning. On the other hand, there’s a few results in the identical 53%-44% leads Scott Walker and Ron Johnson enjoy over Tom Barrett and Russ Feingold (respectively) that bear longer looks than I could afford in a month-long “wrap-up” post.

The first item of note is the partisan split. PPP’s split in this poll was 37% independent, 34% Republican and 30% Democrat. I do have to note that Wisconsin does not have state-monitored party registration, and differeing polling firms have different screens for who is a Republican versus who is a Democrat. It is remarkable how even the topline likely-voter results are between the 4 different non-St. Norbert pollsters that took polls this month even as they had significantly different partisan splits.

PPP noted that there is a rather significant “enthusiasm gap” in Wisconsin, at least as it is measured by those who admitted to voting for Barack Obama in 2008 versus who actually voted for him in 2008. Obama carried Wisconsin by a 56.2%-42.3% margin over John McCain, but among the likely voters this year, only 49% admitted to voting for Obama while 46% said they voted for McCain.

PPP further noted that Obama’s job approval really slipped. Among all the likely voters, it was down to 37% approve/54% disapprove. That compares rather darkly to Rasmussen’s essentially-contemporaneous 48% approve/51% disapprove/-16 Approval Index (strong approve less strong diapprove, with no equivalent in PPP’s polling) statewide, and a national rolling average of 44% approve/55% disapprove/-20 Approval Index taken the same 3 days as PPP’s poll. Worse for Obama, his approval rating among those who admitted to voting for him was only 70% approve/18% disapprove. Perhaps that is why Obama has decided not to head to Wisconsin one more time (H/T-Ed Morrissey).

Meanwhile, both soon-to-be-ex-governor Jim Doyle’s and Russ Feingold’s job approval ratings were in negative territory, and worse than Rasmussen’s equivalent numbers (Rasmussen used favorability for Feingold rather than job approval). There also is a troubling trend for Herb Kohl in the PPP poll – his job approval index was barely above water at 41% approve/40% disapprove.

October 28, 2010

Poll-a-copia – Closing on the end

I’m sorry that it’s been a while since I did one of these. Outside the outliers of the St. Norbert’s Senate poll and various Democrat-sponsored internal polls, not much had really changed in the aggregate since the end of September until now. To make up for that lack of attention, I’ll expand the look to cover the two Congressional races in the northern part of the state, the 7th and 8th Congressional Districts.

Before I really begin, I may as well explain why I’m completely discounting the St. Norbert’s polls, even though their gubernatorial poll appeared to confirm what everybody else has. They have a long, bipartisan history of being outliers, likely due to the extended length of time covered by the polls and the fact that it’s conducted by college students just learning how to do polling.

Senate/Gubernatorial polls

First up for review in both the gubernatorial and Senate races is the Reuters/Ipsos poll (crosstabs courtesy RealCleaPolitics), taken between 10/8 and 10/11 among 600 registered and 451 likely voters. On the likely-voter end, Republican nominee Ron Johnson had a 51%-44% lead on Democrat incumbent Russ Feingold in the Senate race, and Republican nominee Scott Walker had a 52%-42% lead on Democrat nominee Tom Barrett in the gubernatorial race. On the registered-voter end, Johnson’s lead almost completely evaporated to 46%-45%, while Walker’s lead shrunk by less to a 48%-41% lead. Of note in this poll is the partisan split; while the registered voter partisan split was 46% Democrat-38% Republican, the likely voter partisan split was 45% Republican-42% Democrat.

Ipsos did not break down the likely-voter numbers by party. Among the 9% of registered voters who identified themselves as independents in this poll, Johnson had a 38%-30% lead, with a significant part of Feingold’s support coming from those who were merely “leaning” toward him (the “firm-committment” numbers were 37%-25% in favor of Johnson). Meanwhile, Walker had a 41%-15% lead among the independents with leaners and a 36%-15% lead among independents who expressed a “firm committment”.

Next up is the Time/CNN/Opinion Research poll, taken between 10/8 and 10/12 among 931 likely voters. Johnson and Walker both had identical 52%-44% leads over Feingold and Barrett respectively. While the partisan split was not released, based on the margin of error, independents were a substantial plurality, while Republicans and Democrats were roughly equal in representation. Both Johnson and Walker had roughly 20-point leads among independents.

Finally, the Rasmussen polls taken on 10/25 among 750 likely voters. Johnson had a 53%-46% lead on Feingold, while Walker had a 52%-42% lead on Barrett. Democrats had a 39%-37% advantage in the poll over Republicans, but Johnson held a 21-point advantage and Walker held a 27-point advantage among independents.

Going back over the numbers from RealClearPolitics, in the Senate race, outside the St. Norbert outlier, Johnson has been above 50% since the September primaries and Feingold has been at or under 46% against Johnson since polling started including him in May. On the gubernatorial side, outside of a late-September Fox News/Pulse Opinion Research poll, Walker has been at or above 50% since the primaries, while Barrett has been at or below 45% for the entire year including that Fox News/Pulse Opinion Research poll.

Revisions/extensions (1:34 pm 10/29/2010) – I should have procrastinated a bit longer because Public Policy Polling released a poll this morning with Johnson and Walker holding identical 53%-44% leads. Fuller discussion is above.

8th Congressional District

Publicly-available polling has been rather sparse in this district, with only two polls that RealClearPolitics noted, one from The Hill/Penn, Schoen and Berland taken between 10/12 and 10/14 among 415 likely voters and one from DailyKos/Public Policy Polling taken between 10/23 and 10/24 among 1,419 likely voters.

In The Hill’s poll, Republican nominee Reid Ribble had a 45%-44% lead on Democrat incumbent Steve Kagen. There were two items in the crosstabs (courtesy WisPolitics’ DC Wrap) that do not match up with most other polls taken nationwide; the partisan split, and the independent voter result. The split was listed as 38% independent-32% Republican-25% Democrat, while Kagen held a 3-point lead among independents.

The DailyKos poll is far more interesting, not the least of which is the size of the poll. Ribble had a 40%-37% lead on Kagen, with 23% undecided. Meanwhile, Johnson had a 52%-45% lead on Feingold in the district, while Walker had a 52%-44% lead on Barrett.

The demographic percentages at the bottom of the crosstabs seem to have been fouled up, but the partisan split appears to be roughly 38% independent, 31% Democrat and 30% Republican. Among independents, Ribble had a 41%-31% lead, while Johnson had a 16-point lead and Walker a 18-point lead among those same independents.

7th Congressional District

Like the 8th Congressional, publicly-available polling is hard to come by, with the added handicap of no crosstabs from the two outfits that polled the district. The Hill/Penn, Schoen and Berland polled 400 likely voters between 10/2 and 10/7, and found Republican nominee Sean Duffy up on Democrat nominee Julie Lassa 44%-35%. The Hill noted Duffy held a 17-point lead among independents (no partisan split given) and a 2-point lead among women, with Lassa’s only demographic lead being among voters over 55 years old.

An outfit called We Ask America polled 1,150 registered voters on 10/18. They found Duffy up 46.00%-38.61% (yes, they reported to the nearest hundredth of a percent), a bit of a tightening from their 8/4 poll of 1,002 registered voters that had Duffy up 41.83%-33.09%. The partisan split was 39% independent-32% Democrat-29% Republican, and Duffy held a 49.10%-29.95% lead among independents.

October 26, 2010

What To Say About This…

by @ 18:09. Filed under Politics - National.

Vice President Biden was at it again today.

He’s been out stumping for a whole host of Democrat candidates. Today, while spreading propaganda for Democrat Tim Bishop, Biden told the audience:

“Every single great idea that has marked the 21st century, the 20th century and the 19th century has required government vision and government incentive,”

Biden has proven himself to be the Master of Gaffe. Combine that with his ability to speak completely ignorant of facts of any kind and in a way, he’s become boring. I mean, gaffes are funny when you know that the person know better than the words that just came out of their mouth. In Biden’s case, I no longer believe that any of his verbal gaffes are unintentional. I’m more inclined to believe that Biden is willfully ignorant of the facts of the world around him.

When read the above quote, my initial reaction was to put up a post describing how Biden’s comment was typical of leftists who think the world can’t accomplish anything without Mama Government telling it to. I’d then follow that with a list of inventions that prove Biden ignorant. Instead, I think a two word answer will suffice to respond to Biden:

Liquid Paper

New non-tropical low-pressure records

by @ 15:54. Filed under Weather.

This Demon Low is still intensifying, so don’t consider this the final word on it. Late this morning, Superior set a new Wisconsin state record for low pressure at 28.38″ of mercury (adjusted for sea level), breaking the old record of 28.45″ set in Green Bay on April 3, 1982.

Meanwhile, as of 3:13 pm, Orr, Minnesota had a low pressure of 28.22″ of mercury, shattering the previous non-tropical US record of 28.28″ measured just west of Cleveland on January 26, 1978. That is just 0.01″ above the North American non-tropical land record set in Sarnia, Ontario, and a bit above the Great Lakes record of 28.05″ on a buoy in Lake Huron, both measured during that same 1978 blizzard.

For a couple of points of reference, the minimum pressure of the storm that sank the Edmund Fitzgerald bottomed out at 28.95″, and a typical Category 3 hurricane is expected to have minimum pressures between 27.91″ and 28.47″.

Revisions/extensions (5:34 pm 10/26/2010) – Bigfork dropped to 28.21″ of pressure.

R&E part 2 (10:17 pm 10/26/2010) – And it’s a new land record at Bigfork – 28.20″ of pressure recorded at 5:13 pm.

Nevada, North Carolina electronic voting machines preset for straight-D votes

by @ 14:42. Filed under Politics - National, Vote Fraud.

(H/T – Drudge)

Somebody cue Capt. Louis Renault – Democrat election officials are up to the newest versions of their old tricks in trying to steal elections in both Nevada and North Carolina.

Las Vegas’ KVVU-TV reports that voters in Boulder City found that before they had voted for the United States Senate race, Harry Reid’s name was already checked on the touch-screen voting machines. Meanwhile, the New Bern Sun Journal reports that voters who attempted to select a straight-Republican ballot had a straight-Democrat ballot selected by the touch-screen voting machines.

October 25, 2010

Monday Hot Read – P.J. O’Rourke’s “They Hate Our Guts”

by @ 13:01. Filed under Politics - National.

(H/T – Ed Driscoll, who also explains there is a perpetual undergrad in the White House)

P.J. O’Rourke nailed the Democrat philosophy in the current issue of The Weekly Standard:

They don’t just hate our Republican, conservative, libertarian, strict constructionist, family values guts. They hate everybody’s guts. And they hate everybody who has any. Democrats hate men, women, blacks, whites, Hispanics, gays, straights, the rich, the poor, and the middle class.

Democrats hate Democrats most of all. Witness the policies that Democrats have inflicted on their core constituencies, resulting in vile schools, lawless slums, economic stagnation, and social immobility. Democrats will do anything to make sure that Democratic voters stay helpless and hopeless enough to vote for Democrats.

I can’t do better than his close either:

This is not an election on November 2. This is a restraining order. Power has been trapped, abused and exploited by Democrats. Go to the ballot box and put an end to this abusive relationship. And let’s not hear any nonsense about letting the Democrats off if they promise to get counseling.

Roll bloat – Thinking about it edition

by @ 12:31. Filed under The Blog.

There has been a slight lack of blogs from the southwest part of the Badger State on the roll. Fortunately, Tim Gray has rectified that with Use Your Gray Matter.

Pizza Party for Leah Vukmir – tomorrow

by @ 11:38. Filed under Miscellaneous.

If, for some odd reason, you haven’t already received the invite, Leah Vukmir, who is running against Jim Sullivan for the 5th Senate seat, invites you to Mama’s Italian Cuisine, 7718 W. Burleigh in Milwaukee, for a pizza party tomorrow evening starting at 5:30 pm. There is no charge for the event, but if you want to bring along your checkbook and haven’t already maxed out on your donation limits, her campaign would be happy to take some more money.

Zucker hits Senator Ma’am hard

by @ 10:19. Filed under Politics - National.

Shoebox highlighted Senator Barbara Boxer’s (D-CA) Achilles heel (namely, the inability of dopers to concentrate for very long) yesterday, so I thought I’d bring in David Zucker to deliver the hard-working coup de grâce.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixiYZ9DPk8o[/youtube]

It’s time to call her Ma’am again.

October 24, 2010

Boxer’s Achilles Heel?

by @ 19:38. Filed under Politics - National.

The race between Barbara “Maam” Boxer and Carly Fiorina is one the key Senate “toss up” races.  With a couple of exceptions, the polls over the past couple of weekshave shown “Maam” up by a couple of points but with Fiorina within the margin of error. While the Senate race is the one that has the most national visibility, it’s possible that a separate vote by Californians is the one that will ultimately determine who controls the Senate.

One of California’s legendary Propositions is on the ballot a week from Tuesday. Proposition 19 would allow the legal growing of up to 25 sq. ft. of marijuana. It would also make it legal to posses up to one ounce of marijuana. In a poll released last Tuesday, SurveryUSAfound an interesting correlation between those supporting Proposition 19 and those supporting Barbara “Maam” Boxer. According to SurveyUSA, there is a strong correlation between those supporting the legalization of marijuana and those supporting Maam. I know, who’d of thunk it?

There is an old adage that says that a person’s greatest strength is also their greatest weakness. This adage may be sage for Maam Boxer. While Boxer has strong support from those supporting Proposition 19 and Proposition 19 had originally had strong support, that support looks to be waning as election day draws near.

In its report, SurveyUSA shows that support for Proposition 19 may have reached its apex with “no” reported as moving to 44%. While I generally respect SurveyUSA’s polling, they may be a ways off on this issue. Numerous polls, including this recent one reported by the LA Times, have “No” polling dramatically higher than 44%. The LA Times poll has “No” at 51% and growing. Worse, when the poll details are reviewed, supporters of Proposition 19 come from younger voters who are not expected to make up nearly the voting population of 2010 that they made up in 2008.

Maam Boxer’s ability to return to Washington and bristle against military personnel appears to be largely tied to the energy of young weed smokers. My observation has been that smoking weed doesn’t tend to increase an individual’s motivation. In fact, I typically see a definite laxness amongst potheads.

If I were Maam Boxer, I don’t know that I’d be sleeping very well these days. Even though the potheads who will likely determine her future, probably are. Maybe they’ll over sleep next Tuesday!

October 23, 2010

Nancy Pelosi Has Just Been Fired!

by @ 10:16. Filed under Politics - National.

I’ve been waiting for this moment for several weeks.

Real Clear Politics keeps tabs on polls of races across the country.  they accumulate the poll results and publish average results for each of the races.  The “average” results help to keep either party from hanging hope on one or two outlier polls, avoiding reality.  Upon completing the averages for individual polls, RCP puts races into one of seven categories ranging from safe Democrat to safe Republican.  They also have some number of races that are within the margin of error and thus listed as “toss ups”.

For the past several weeks RCP has shown enough races in the Democrat categories that when added to the toss ups, there was a number that still had the potential to outweigh the anticipated Republican seats. However, with this morning’s updates, that is no longer the case.

As of this morning, RCP now has 178 seats in the Democrat category, 220 in the Republican category and 37 in toss ups. As of this morning, according to RCP, there is no way, even if they win all of the toss ups, that the Democrats can retain the House. This is all VERY good news for Republicans!

As if the above wasn’t bad enough, RCP has even worse news for Democrats. In the past 7 days, RCP has changed the category of 27 House races. Of those races, all but 2 have moved the direction of Republicans! Also in those 27 races are 4 races that have been moved from Likely to just Leans Democrat. Included in this last number is MN8 which is the district of Jim Oberstar a life long fixture of the House and a poster child for all a requirement for term limits.

As recent as yesterday, Democrat leadership had continued to spout irrational nonsense about Nancy Pelosi being speaker again next year. To any thinking individual, these statements have been obviously wrong for some time and make the speaker appear ignorant or of the belief that the listener is. Nancy Pelosi herself has been telling people that she would retain the House although recently, she had been building a stepping off point by intimating that she wouldn’t run for Speaker again even if the Dems retained the House.

With today’s news, we are happily saving Pelosi from the angst of deciding whether to run again or not. As of this morning, we can all say to Nancy Pelosi:

“You are the weakest link. Goodbye!”

October 22, 2010

Senate debate liveblog – last call

Republican Senate nominee Ron Johnson and Democrat Senator Russ Feingold will be appearing before Mike Gousha and a statewide townhall audience tonight for their last debate. The fun begins at 6:30 pm, and if you’re not in Wisconsin, you can head to wisn.com, the host of tonight’s debate, to watch. Meanwhile, saddle up to the bar, pour yourself a cold one, and come on in for another semi-drunkblog (how much I drink depends on how far Feingold goes off the rails). Do be advised that the language may become salty.

Who Does Harry Reid Think He Is?

by @ 12:30. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Barack Obama?

October 19, 2010

Just Because

by @ 16:00. Filed under Miscellaneous.

October 16, 2010

Poster teacher for the “teacher” bailout losing her job…again

by @ 9:03. Tags:
Filed under Education, Politics - National.

(H/T – Greg Pollowitz via his Twitter stream)

The (Toledo) Blade reports on the sad case of teach…er, Obama prop Amanda VanNess. VanNess, who was notified she would be laid off from her Toledo Public Schools teaching job when Obama came calling to her union, was invited by her union to DC to be present when Obama signed the “teacher” bailout bill.

She subsequently got another job with TPS as a permanent substitute teacher, not because of the $7.6 million TPS got from the $26 billion “teacher” bailout, but because that spot had unexpectedly opened up. Now, she’s about to lose that job because of continued collapsing employment.

That $7.6 million? It’s likely going to be used to create an “in-government” crossing guard corps to replace a contracted private company and rehire government bus drivers laid off to deal with TPS’ massive deficit.

October 15, 2010

Weekend Hot Read – Iowahawk’s “BELTWAY ADVENTURE”

by @ 20:15. Filed under Politics - National.

Iowahawk’s latest missive brings back memories…

WELCOME TO ADVENTURE! WOULD YOU LIKE INSTRUCTIONS?

>YES

YOU ARE SOMEWHERE IN BELTWAY FOREST, WHERE SOME HAVE FOUND TREASURES OF GOLD ALTHOUGH SOME HAVE ENTERED AND NEVER BEEN SEEN AGAIN. MAGIC IS SAID TO WORK IN THE FOREST. I WILL BE YOUR EYES AND HANDS. DIRECT ME WITH SIMPLE COMMANDS.

YOU ARE IN AN OVAL OFFICE. THERE IS SNOW OUTSIDE. YOU ARE BEHIND A DESK. ON DESK THERE IS A BUST OF CHURCHILL.

YOU HAVE A CONGRESS.

YOU HAVE A SENATE.

YOU HAVE A MEDIA.

YOU HAVE A TELEPROMPTER.

YOU HAVE A MILITARY.

YOU HAVE A BIG JET.

YOU HAVE $3 TRILLION OF GOLD.

YOU HAVE 82% APPROVAL HEALTH.

THERE IS 7.2% UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE FOREST.

YOU HAVE A RACE CARD.

YOU HAVE INAUGURAL PARTY LEFTOVERS.

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?

To continue, please press play.

Here’s another name for you, Barrett – Kevin Clancy

by @ 16:30. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin, Vote Fraud.

Former ACORN worker Kevin Clancy pled guilty to a single charge of Falsely Procuring Voter Registration as a Party to a Crime today. Clancy was accused of submitting multiple voter registration applications for the same individuals, and also was part of a scheme in which he and other Special Registration Deputies registered each other to vote multiple times in order to meet voter registration quotas imposed by ACORN.

Clancy is the 12th person to be convicted by the Election Fraud Task Force for electoin fraud, created by the Wisconsin Attorney General’s and Milwaukee County District Attorney’s offices.

Wisconsin gubernatorial debate drunkblog, round 2

by @ 14:39. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

Tonight, it’s Mike Gousha’s turn with Scott Walker and Tom Barrett, in a 90-minute “townhall-style” debate hosted by WISN-TV starting at 6:30 pm. This one won’t be covered by C-SPAN, so if your local TV stations aren’t covering it, you’ll have to catch the stream on wisn.com.

This time, I WILL be here, so make sure you get a couple extra beverages, and come on back at 6:30.

We’re number 43 (again)

Forbes magazine came out with its 5th annual “Best States for Business” ranking, and for the fourth straight year, Wisconsin is in the bottom 10. Even the “improvement” from 48th last year to 43rd this year, which matches where Wisconsin ranked in 2008, is not exactly good news.

Since the story doesn’t mention Wisconsin directly, we have to draw conclusions from the somewhat-limited tables. The business cost rank, which measures the costs of labor, energy, and taxes, remained unchanged from 35th last year among the 50 states, which continues to be the worst position Wisconsin has been in that metric. The labor supply rank, which measures educational attainment, net migration and population growth, likewise remained unchanged at 36th. The regulatory environment rank, which includes not only regulatory and tort climate, but incentives, transportation and bond rating, somehow improved a spot to 36th this year. The quality of life ranking, a measure of schools, health, crime, cost of living and poverty rates, likewise improved a spot, from 11th to 10th.

The big “improvement” was the economic climate rank, which measures job, income and gross state product growth as well as unemployment and presence of big companies. That rose from 41st to 35th despite the gross state product declining from $198 billion to $196 billion, mostly on fact the recession hit Wisconsin earlier and harder than most other states. The August 2009 non-adjusted unemployment rate was 8.6% in Wisconsin and 9.6% nationwide, while the August 2010 non-adjusted unemployment rate was 7.7% in Wisconsin and 9.5% nationwide.

However, even that bit of news is not exactly rosy. On the current trajectory, Wisconsin’s growth prospects rating, a projection of job, income and gross state product growth as well as business openings/closings and venture capital investments, fell from 45th to 47th, its worst rating in the 5-year history.

Translation – If you want to have Wisconsin once again be among the 5 worst states for business, keep the Democrats in power. If you want a shot of improving Wisconsin’s business climate, give the Republicans a chance.

No Soup For You!

by @ 6:54. Filed under Economy, Economy Held Hostage.

In case any of you are still wondering whether the current administration had the intellectual strength to handle the current economic challenges:

No Soup for you:
Social Security to announce no COLA for 2011

Oh, don’t get me wrong, COLAs are what they are and if zero, well, that’s what it is. It does however, seem a bit ironic that seniors who will be getting no COLA will also be getting the “benefit” of Placebocare which will actually increase their health care costs.

Because we’re still spending like drunken sailors:
Government to report on $1 trillion-plus deficit

The economic acts of the Obama administration continue to play out as if they were planned by the, out of touch with reality, Dr. Evil.

I wonder if Obama has found anyone to glue lasers to the shark’s heads yet?

US Economy held hostage….18 more days!

October 13, 2010

Presstitute follies – The Chicago Way

by @ 19:16. Filed under Presstitute Follies.

Dana Loesch put up some video of WLS-TV’s Charles Thomas and WBBM-TV’s Jay Levine aggressively protecting former White House Chief of Staff and Chicago mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel from the questions of independent journalist William Kelly. Levine went so far as to threaten to “deck” Kelly.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sce0TLA5UYE[/youtube]

Just as a reminder, both WBBM-TV and WLS-TV are owned by their networks, CBS and ABC respectively.

October 12, 2010

October Drinking Right – Half-hour warning

by @ 18:26. Tags:
Filed under Miscellaneous.

This is the Emergency Blogging System. It has been activated because Steve is about to head to Papa’s Social Club, 7718 W Burleigh in Milwaukee, for the October edition of Drinking Right. He has it on good authority Republican state treasurer nominee Kurt Schuller will be there.

Your official news, information, and instructions are to get to Papa’s somewhere around 7. This concludes this posting of the Emergency Blogging System.

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