WisGOP trying to bankrupt local gov't through pension "reform"

The great inconsistency of GOP political aims: local control except when we want big (state) government ... and probably extract/secure big money from lobbyists.

Can you imagine private sector employers being required to fund the "potential 401k" for every person they hired thirty years (their employment horizon) ahead of time ... well it is not quite that bad but almost.  It's sort of like what Congress did to make the "USPS" look bad and claim it was inefficient.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2015

JAKE'S ECONOMIC TA FUNHOUSE

DISCUSSIONS FROM A GRADUATING MASTER'S STUDENT ON ITEMS INCLUDING LIFE IN THE UPPER MIDWEST, THE DISMAL SCIENCE, AND BRILLIANT BEVERAGES.

WisGOP trying to bankrupt local gov't through pension "reform"

On this Labor Day, there is a looming bill which offers more proof that Scott Walker's union-busting Act 10 was merely one piece of a much larger agenda. There bill is intended to further hamper the benefits and compensation of public employees, and to force local governments into a choice between not having benefits for their employees and decimating public services in order to fairly compensate such employees.

The proposed legislation is Assembly Bill 269, and it is scheduled to be heard by the Assembly's Urban and Local Affairs Committee tomorrow morning. The state's Legislative Reference Bureau explains the bill as follows:

Currently, cities, villages, towns, counties, school districts, and technical college districts (local governments) provide health care benefits for their employees. Some also provide postretirement health care benefits for their employees.

This bill prohibits a local government from providing health care benefits to any employee hired on or after January 1, 2016, for use upon the employee’s retirement, including compensated absences but excluding the implicit rate subsidy, unless the cost of the benefit is fully funded in a segregated account, based on an actuarial study conducted at least once every four years or other method that complies with generally accepted accounting principles. The bill also provides that, if a local government dissolves a segregated account established for the purpose of providing such health care benefits, the local government must provide for the equitable distribution of the proceeds among the beneficiaries.

WI 1848 Forward: Wis #GOP trying to #bankrupt local (#education included) gov't through #pension "reform"

Creationism has EVOLVED :)

Be certain to review the story about Roger Williams that follows this one!


Adam Laats - "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Huckabee" - Creationism in Historical Perspective


Adam Laats - "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Huckabee" - Creationism in Historical Perspective from EvoS on Vimeo.

I had no perspective ... How about you ?

Not the Roger Williams you are thinking of!

Roger Williams, America’s First Rebel - The founder of Providence was the first to see that religious freedom, and separation of church and state, was intimately connected with political freedom.

... They are right about one thing: the history of the idea of separating church and state is crucial to understanding the First Amendment. For that amendment did not come from mere intellectual exercise; it emerged in response to historic events. That history also demonstrates that it was no accident that the freedoms of religion, of speech, of the press, of assembly and of expressing grievances against the government were linked in the same amendment. Together they represent the essentials of liberty—the right to think as one chooses and to express that thought. ....

MIDSUMMER NIGHTS' SCIENCE: WHO WE ARE AND HOW WE GOT HERE: ANCIENT DNA AND THE NEW SCIENCE OF THE HUMAN PAST: Broad Institute

Also consider ...

“The view of morality as a set of immutable principles, or laws, that are ours to discover ultimately comes from religion. It doesn't really matter whether it is God, human reason, or science that formulates these laws. All of these approaches share a top-down orientation, their chief premise being that humans don't know how to behave and that someone must tell them. But what if morality is created in day-to-day social interaction, not at some abstract mental level? What if it is grounded in the emotions, which most of the time escape the neat categorizations that science is fond of? Since the whole point of my book is to argue a bottom-up approach, I will obviously return to this issue. My views are in line with the way we know the human mind works, with visceral reactions arriving before rationalizations, and also with the way evolution produces behavior. A good place to start is with an acknowledgment of our background as social animals, and how this background predisposes us to treat each other. This approach deserves attention at a time in which even avowed atheists are unable to wean themselves from a semireligious morality, thinking that the world would be a better place if only a white-coated priesthood could take over from the frocked one.”

The Bonobo And The Atheist, Chapter 1 – EARTHLY DELIGHTS, page 23

Frans de Waal (2013)

#Creationism has EVOLVED :)  <Adam #Laats - "Surely You're Joking, Mr. #Huckabee Ben #Carson " - #EvoS Who knew? WI 1848 Forward #Morality Roger Williams, America’s #Rebel - Founder of #Providence #Liberty - Check your #DNA #Morality 

WI 1848 Forward: #Creationism #EVOLVED - #Morality Bottom UP 

Righteous Politicians are Scary - not Leaders ( Trump, Walker, Santorum , Huckabee )

TED2008 · Filmed February 2008 · 18:32 Jonathan Haidt: The moral roots of liberals and conservatives

#Morality & Righteous #Politicians are Scary -NOT Leaders ( #Trump, #Walker, #Santorum, #Huckabee - My tribe/team is superior #Immoral ) - Faces of #Genocide - WI 1848 Forward

#WI #GOP - #Republicans assault #OpenRecords & treat us like MUSHrooms

So do we now know the "bad guys" ! WSJ 7/7/15

John Nygren, Robin Vos defend open records law changes

... and Fitzgerald says he was at the table too!  How brave :)


Does it really surprise anyone that the GOP WI Legislature know that if you know what they are doing you would throw-up!

Interesting timing - just before the 4th of July (let there be light) and when we are all distracted!

"This is a very serious full-frontal assault on the state’s traditions of open government," said Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council.

Under those changes:

• "Deliberative materials" would not be considered public records. Deliberative materials would include "communications, opinions, analyses, briefings, background information, recommendations, suggestions, drafts, correspondence about drafts, and notes, created or prepared in the process of reaching a decision concerning a policy or course of action or in the process of drafting a document or formulating an official communication." 
• A legislator would have the right to refuse disclosure of a broad swath of communications and records.
• All drafting files and records related to reference, drafting and research requests by the Legislative Reference Bureau would be confidential and closed to the public "at all times." 
• No section of the state's public records law that conflicts with a rule enacted by the Legislature could apply to a record.
• The confidentiality requirements placed on nonpartisan legislative service agencies may not be used to prohibit an agency staff member from communicating with a staff member from another similar agency. 

From the Cap Times story:

In January 2014, the Wisconsin State Journal used drafting records to report that a controversial bill to allow high-income parents to avoid paying tens of thousands of dollars a year in child support was written with the help of a wealthy donor to the bill’s author, Rep. Joel Kleefisch, R-Oconomowoc.

Drafting records showed in February that the University of Wisconsin had objected to a proposal in Gov. Scott Walker's budget to scrap the "Wisconsin Idea" from the UW's statutory mission statement.

And last month, a review of drafting records for a proposed 20-week abortion ban showed that it originally included language relating to the health of the mother that was later removed, then added once again as an amendment. 

Read more: http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/budget-motion-proposes-sweeping-changes-to-records-access-in-wisconsin/article_20247404-2104-11e5-9436-0b82ca9f4f20.html#ixzz3epIlQHGU 

WI 1848 Forward: #WI #GOP  #GriftersOnParade - #Republicans assault #OpenRecords & treat us like MUSHrooms. #Madison #Milwaukee #Wausau

WI 1848 Forward #WI #GOP - #Republicans assault #OpenRecords & treat us like MUSHrooms. Who has most to hide #Walker

#WI 1848 Forward: #WIsconsin #GOP >assault #OpenRecords & treat us like MUSHrooms. Who has most to hide #Nygren #Vos

#WI 1848 Forward: #WIsconsin #GOP >assault #OpenRecords >> They failed but remember that they tried - and will again

Ted Talk: Why it's time to forget the pecking order at work! A lesson about society > You might add in "politics"

Filmed May 2015 at TEDWomen 2015

Margaret Heffernan:

Why it's time to forget the pecking order at work! A lesson about society!

When I heard/read this talk I thought immediately about Scott Walker, Governor of Wisconsin.  He has been noted several times as saying that the way he would accomplish his political objectives was by "divide and conquer".  Divide the unions between private and public.  The public unions between police, fire, correction officers, teachers and other state public employee unions.

Scott Walker is the Governor of "Social Dysfunction".  See the whole video ... less than 15 minutes to tremendous insight ... read the interactive transcript as you go.

An evolutionary biologist at Purdue University named William Muir studied chickens. He was interested in productivity -- I think it's something that concerns all of us -- but it's easy to measure in chickens because you just count the eggs. (Laughter) He wanted to know what could make his chickens more productive, so he devised a beautiful experiment. Chickens live in groups, so first of all, he selected just an average flock, and he let it alone for six generations. But then he created a second group of the individually most productive chickens -- you could call them superchickens -- and he put them together in a superflock, and each generation, he selected only the most productive for breeding.

0:56After six generations had passed, what did he find? Well, the first group, the average group, was doing just fine. They were all plump and fully feathered and egg production had increased dramatically. What about the second group? Well, all but three were dead. They'd pecked the rest to death. (Laughter) The individually productive chickens had only achieved their success by suppressing the productivity of the rest. ...

We've thought that success is achieved by picking the superstars, the brightest men, or occasionally women, in the room, and giving them all the resources and all the power. And the result has been just the same as in William Muir's experiment: aggression, dysfunction and waste. If the only way the most productive can be successful is by suppressing the productivity of the rest, then we badly need to find a better way to work and a richer way to live. 

So what is it that makes some groups obviously more successful and more productive than others? Well, that's the question a team at MIT took to research. They brought in hundreds of volunteers, they put them into groups, and they gave them very hard problems to solve. And what happened was exactly what you'd expect, that some groups were very much more successful than others, but what was really interesting was that the high-achieving groups were not those where they had one or two people with spectacularly high I.Q. Nor were the most successful groups the ones that had the highest aggregate I.Q.Instead, they had three characteristics, the really successful teams. First of all, they showed high degrees of social sensitivity to each other. This is measured by something called the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test. It's broadly considered a test for empathy, and the groups that scored highly on this did better.Secondly, the successful groups gave roughly equal time to each other, so that no one voice dominated,but neither were there any passengers. And thirdly, the more successful groups had more women in them. (Applause) Now, was this because women typically score more highly on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, so you're getting a doubling down on the empathy quotient? Or was it because they brought a more diverse perspective? We don't really know, but the striking thing about this experiment is that it showed what we know, which is some groups do better than others, but what's key to that is their social connectedness to each other.

PBS - The 1% are getting wealthier, and lobbying has a lot to do with it


#TED Why it's time to forget the pecking order at work & #society >add in #politics & Scott #Walker  #TRUMP #GOP ( #GriftersOnParade ) #Grifters -WI 1848 Forward

#WPR, #WPT Being informed is critical: #GOP, #WI #JFC, #Walker want you stupid

Message from:

The Time is NOW! The legislature’s Joint Finance Committee will meet TUESDAY, MAY 12 to determine their final recommendation  for funding of the Educational Communications Board (ECB),  which includes funding that keeps Wisconsin Public Television (WPT),  Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR), Wisconsin Media Lab and  our state’s Emergency Alert System running. It’s imperative they hear from you before the end of the day on Monday! CALL (or email) as many of the members of the  Joint Finance Committee as possible NOW and  tell them how much you value the services of  Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Public Television  and tell them you would like any reductions to funding  to the Educational Communications Board to be proportionate to other agency reductions. Members of the Wisconsin Joint Committee on Finance Sen. Alberta Darling - Co-Chair (R-River Hills) -  Sen.Darling@legis.wisconsin.gov (608) 266-5830 Sen. Luther Olsen (R-Ripon) -  Sen.Olsen@legis.wisconsin.gov (608) 266-0751 Sen. Sheila Harsdorf (R-River Falls) -  Sen.Harsdorf@legis.wisconsin.gov (608) 266-7745 Sen. Leah Vukmir (R-Wauwatosa) -  Sen.Vukmir@legis.wisconsin.gov (608) 266-2512 Sen. Thomas Tiffany (R-Hazelhurst) -  Sen.Tiffany@legis.wisconsin.gov (608) 266-2509 Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) -  Sen.Marklein@legis.wisconsin.gov (608) 266-0703 Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) -  Sen.Taylor@legis.wisconsin.gov (608) 266-5810 Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton) -  Sen.Erpenbach@legis.wisconsin.gov (608) 266-6670 Rep. John Nygren - Co-Chair (R-Marinette) -  Rep.Nygren@legis.wisconsin.gov (608) 266-2343 Rep. Dale Kooyenga (R-Brookfield) -  Rep.Kooyenga@legis.wisconsin.gov (608) 266-9180 Rep. Amy Loudenbeck (R-Clinton) -  Rep.Loudenbeck@legis.wisconsin.gov (608) 266-9967 Rep. Dean Knudson (R-Hudson) -  Rep.Knudson@legis.wisconsin.gov (608) 266-1526 Rep. Michael Schraa (R-Oshkosh) -  Rep.Schraa@legis.wisconsin.gov (608) 267-7990 Rep. Mary Czaja (R-Irma) -  Rep.Czaja@legis.wisconsin.gov (608) 266-7694 Rep. Chris Taylor (D-Madison) -  Rep.Taylor@legis.wisconsin.gov (608) 266-5342 Rep. Gordon Hintz (D-Oshkosh) -  Rep.Hintz@legis.wisconsin.gov (608) 266-2254 Background Information The current proposed reduction to the Educational Communications Board is 34%  - much larger than the average reduction for other agencies.  We recognize these are challenging times for Wisconsin,  but this cut is disproportionate, and crippling. The Educational Communications Board is the technical  backbone of Wisconsin Public Television (WPT),  Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR), and the state’s  ENTIRE emergency alert/AMBER alert systems  (the system that triggers tornado alerts for all media statewide). The proposed budget cut puts this system’s reliability at risk. ECB is also the home of the Wisconsin Media Lab,  which creates, curates and disseminates free K-12 classroom  resources and educational materials statewide to more than  800,000 public, private and home school kids each year,  an irreplaceable service critical to classroom success. A cut of this magnitude would have catastrophic impact  on our ability to provide service to the state’s residents  in the areas of safety, education and broadcast. TIME IS RUNNING OUT for you to join this conversation -  call or email the members of the Joint Finance Committee NOW and tell them that any reductions to the  Educational Communications Board  should be reduced to a proportionate level. My Opinion:Personally  I don't think funding should  be reduced at all. WI 1848 Forward: #WPR, #WPT Being informed is critical: #Koch #Elites #1% #GOP #WI #JFC #Walker want you stupid !! WI 1848 Forward: #WPR, #WPT Being cut 34% is catastrophe > #Koch #Elites #1% #GOP #WI #JFC #Walker want you stupid ! #ILovePBS WI 1848 Forward: #WPR, #WPT Being informed is critical: #Koch #Elites #1% #GOP #Trump

Why does WI State Rep. Robert Brooks and fellow travelers want to tell some what to eat?

Well ... take a look at his district and demographics ... for example > Saukville, Port Washington --

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saukville,_Wisconsin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Washington,_Wisconsin

Assembly Bill 177

An Act to create 20.435 (4) (cm), 49.79 (7m), 227.01 (13) (tm) and 253.06 (9) of the statutes; Relating to: limiting the foods that may be purchased under FoodShare; requiring a report on the cost to implement and comply with the food limitations; requiring review, updating, and publication of the list of authorized foods; providing an exemption from rule-making procedures; and making an appropriation. (FE)

4/22/2015

Introduced by Representatives R. Brooks, Brandtjen, Allen,  Czaja, Gannon, Horlacher,  Kerkman, Knodl, Kremer, Nygren, Rohrkasteand Petersen; cosponsored by Senators Marklein and Nass

#FoodPolice #1% #elites  > #WI State Rep. Robert #Brooks & fellow travelers > tell some what to eat? #Saukville #Hartford - WI 1848 Forward