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In an unusual effort to rebut bad news on the jobs front, the Walker administration is speeding up release of new numbers showing job gains rather than job losses in Wisconsin last year. The numbers come from a source familiar to many economists but one that hasn't figured until now in the state's highly politicized jobs debate heading into the June 5 recall election: the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. The new figures, provided to the Journal Sentinel on Tuesday, cover the final three months of 2011. State officials said they show a gain of 23,321 jobs (public and...

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett demanded Tuesday, May 16, that Gov. Scott Walker disclose any advice state election officials gave him about forming a defense fund linked to a secret probe of his associates. The Republican governor hasn't been charged in the investigation but Democrats insist he created the fund because he's a key figure in the probe. Barrett, a Democrat who will face Walker in a June 5 recall election, has demanded for weeks that Walker reveal exactly what's going on.

Below is an email from Mary Magnuson, a MoveOn member in Brookfield, Wisconsin, who created a petition on SignOn.org, the nonprofit site that allows anyone to start their own online petition. If you have concerns or feedback about this petition, click here. Dear MoveOn member, As a Wisconsin progressive working day and night for the recall of Scott Walker, I'm shocked: The Democratic National Committee still isn't giving financial support to the recall fight in Wisconsin. After more than a year of grassroots efforts, Wisconsin citizens have accomplished more than anyone thought possible. We now have a Democratic challenger to...

Now that Democrats have ended their divisive recall primary in Wisconsin, one would expect the polling to show their nominee to be gaining some traction against sitting Governor Scott Walker. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett was considered the stronger of the Democrats challenging Walker in the unusual recall election, and polls just after the recall showed him nearly within the margin of error of the incumbent. This week, however, a new poll from We Ask America of over 1200 likely voters puts Walker on top by nine, 52/43: While other polls also show Walker in the lead, no one is suggesting...

Top Wisconsin Democrats are furious with the national party — and the Democratic National Committee in particular — for refusing their request for a major investment in the battle to recall Scott Walker, I’m told.The failure to put up the money Wisconsin Dems need to execute their recall plan comes at a time when the national Republican Party is sinking big money into defending Walker, raising fears that the DNC’s reluctance could help tip the race his way.“We are frustrated by the lack of support from the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Governors Association,” a top Wisconsin Democratic Party...

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is the GOPs favorite governor for two reasons. 1) He's taken on public sector unions/workers/pensions. 2) He's hated by public sector unions/workers, which means he gets brownie points for being disliked by the right people. It's just too bad that from an economic standpoint, he's not a good governor. Menzie Chinn at Econbrowser takes a look at his record on private sector job creation, and it turns out that not only is he well behind his own goals, he's just generally bad at it. This chart showing Wiscon's actual record of job creation vs. his stated...

That sound you hear may be the sputtering of Wisconsin Democrats and public-sector unions’ campaign to oust Republican Gov. Scott Walker. On Tuesday, Democrats went to the polls to choose a candidate to square off against Walker in next month’s recall election. But the union-led opposition’s hopes that the standard bearer would be a Big Labor darling were dashed with the election of Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, rather than the unions’ preferred candidate, Democratic operative Kathleen Falk. Falk’s defeat marks only the latest setback for a recall campaign that is increasingly running out of steam.Keep reading... 

Embattled Republican Governor Scott Walker holds a five-point lead over his newly nominated Democratic challenger Tom Barrett in Wisconsin’s special recall election. A new Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey shows that 50% of the state’s Likely Voters prefer Walker while 45% choose Barrett. Two percent (2%) prefer some other candidate and another two percent (2%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.) The survey of 500 Likely Voters in Wisconsin was conducted on May 9, 2012 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for...

Tuesday was a bad night for the labor movement. In Wisconsin, with only token opposition, incumbent Gov. Scott Walker got 97 percent of the vote in the Republican primary, and almost as many votes were cast for him than in the entire Democratic primary combined. This is a bad sign for Democrats. The percentage of the vote Walker received seemed more appropriate for Mugabe than the former county executive of Milwaukee. Wisconsin Democrats were supposed to be enthusiastic about taking down Walker. The labor movement in the United States put a bulls-eye on the governor and labeled him public enemy...

A Chippewa Falls man who repeatedly tried to block his estranged wife from driving to the polls Tuesday was hospitalized with head, neck and back injuries when she struck him with her sport utility vehicle. Jeffrey Radle, a Gov. Scott Walker supporter, was on foot. Amanda Radle, a recall proponent, was in a Dodge Durango. The pair had been arguing early Tuesday afternoon over who she was going to vote for in the gubernatorial recall election primary, said Chippewa Falls Police Chief Wendy L. Stelter. "She was planning on voting for a certain candidate, and it wasn't the candidate he...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) - Republican Gov. Scott Walker has easily defeated token opposition in a GOP primary in a recall election that has become a nationally watched battle over union rights. Preliminary results from Tuesday's primary show Walker beat protester Arthur Kohl-Riggs with 96 percent of the vote.

By the end of today we will know which Democrat will be running against Gov. Scott Walker in the June 5 recall election, and if the polls are right it will be Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. Barrett’s campaign will shift into high gear, and for the next month we will be bombarded with campaign ads addressing assorted issues carefully chosen to distract us from the most important issue: Barrett’s promise to “use any vehicle I can” to reinstate collective bargaining privileges to public unions. But Barrett also promises to “reunite” Wisconsin. Now let’s think about that. Do you believe Wisconsinites...

Remember the Greek-style protests in Madison, the union sit-ins, the lawmakers who fled to Illinois to avoid voting on Scott Walker's collective-bargaining law last year? Now that the recall election of Mr. Walker is in full swing, Big Labor must be wondering where the outrage went.

...........in Wisconsin, it seems somewhat difficult to get anyone to refer to government unions as a “special interest.” Unions refer to themselves as “the middle class,” or the “hard-working people” of the state — as if every member of the middle class worked for a state or local government. To the Left, any collection of individuals that uses their own money to influence a public debate is known as an “interest group.” Conversely, if a similar group uses taxpayer money boosted through union dues to do the same thing, it is known as a “grassroots organization.” ..........Not only are unions...

Embattled Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is locked in a dead heat with Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett ahead of the state's June 5 recall election, according to a new poll from Marquette University Law School. The poll shows Barrett leading Walker among registered voters by one percentage point, 47 percent to 46 percent. Among likely voters Walker bests Barrett 48 percent to 47 percent. Both leads are the within the margin of error. Barrett will compete against former Dane County executive Kathleen Falk for the Democratic nomination next week. According to the Marquette poll, Barrett leads Falk in that contest...

Everybody in the state knows where the governor works. Gov. Scott Walker's office is in the east wing of the Capitol. Many people know where the governor resides. Walker has the Executive Residence when he's in Madison. Otherwise, his family lives on Wauwatosa's east side. But here's something almost no one knows: Where his main campaign headquarters is. His staff is trying to keep that a secret. It's a page taken from the playbook of the 14 Senate Democrats who wouldn't let anyone know where they were hiding out in Illinois last year so they could duck protests. "Each of...

The Tea Party Express is launching the "Tell the Truth" ad campaign to combat the onslaught of liberal funded attack ads on Gov. Walker! . The public employee unions have pledged to spent $60 million on their RECALL effort to viciously attack Gov. Walker and distort the truth about the success of his governorship.  In fact, they just dropped half a million dollars on TV ads this week alone! . We are fighting back with an ad campaign of our own to get the truth out there about the success that Gov. Walker and his reforms have had in Wisconsin. ...

So much for Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) stewardship of the Wisconsin economy and his promise that eliminating collective bargaining rights for public employees and massive budget cuts would turn the Badger State into a job growth miracle.A report today from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that Wisconsin is the only state in the nation to suffer “statistically significant” job loss during the 12 months from March 2011 to March 2012. In other words, while the rest of the nation is at least holding its own or seeing improvement in job growth, Walker’s Wisconsin experiment is a miserable...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker established a program that has given hundreds of thousands of dollars in merit raises and bonuses to some state workers even as he preached cost-cutting and pushed through a law reducing most public workers' pay and eliminating their union rights. Read more: http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/walker-reinstates-bonuses-despite-budget-shortfall/article_3d9e5de4-8b0f-11e1-affa-001a4bcf887a.html#ixzz1shWTttZu

Wisconsin's Governor Scott Walker will be interviewed by Neil Cavuto on the Fox; News Channel at 4 PM Eastern (3 PM Central) today. This is a live thread for those watching. I'm stuck at work and cannot watch the show. Your World with Neil Cavuto.

I gave $100 to "Friends of Scott Walker" on 4/2 using my Am Ex card. My card payments are current have been for decades. American Express sent me a snail-mail letter saying, they 'had a concern about 'possible fraudulent use of my card' - and STOPPED THE CONTRIBUTION. I called them, asked for an explanation, they said I'd need to resubmit it. Anyone else have this "problem"?

When Gov. Scott Walker went up with an ad last week attacking Tom Barrett, he was looking to weaken a potential June opponent. But Barrett used it as a badge of honor, because it seemed to bolster one of his main arguments to Democratic voters in the May 8 primary -- that he’s the opponent Walker takes most seriously. “I think it’s a bit of a back-handed compliment from the Republicans,” said Barrett spokesman Phil Walzak, who said the Walker ad shows “they’re clearly more concerned about facing Tom Barrett in the general election than any other candidate.” Is Tom...

On Wednesday, the Department of Public Instruction unveiled data that showed that jobs in Wisconsin’s public schools had decreased by over 2,300 positions. A closer look into this data shows that three districts – Milwaukee, Kenosha, and Janesville – were responsible for the bulk of these reductions. These three districts are some of the largest in the state, with Kenosha and Milwaukee ranking third and first, respectively, in terms of student enrollment. However, they are also notable for being the only three of the state’s 15 largest districts to choose not to utilize the provision of Act10. By refusing to...

We’re long past the point of being surprised when some nerve center of Wisconsin “justice” turns out to be a nest of Liberal manipulators. Familiarity is no reason to put up with it. So the latest revelation by the investigative reporters at Media Trackers is ample cause to scream bloody murder, and to place a call to Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm to ask what in Hell is going on. (414) 278-4646. Media Trackers has identified almost four dozen employees of the D.A.’s office as signers of the Walker recall petition. That’s the same D.A.’s office that’s been running...

Milwaukee, Wisc. - According to Wisconsin's Department of Revenue, property taxes on homes in the state of Wisconsin have decreased for the first time in more than a decade. Governor Scott Walker's pledge to balance the budget without raising taxes was a key plank of his 2010 campaign, and his fulfillment of that pledge will be a major campaign theme leading up to the June 5 recall election. “Our reforms have reversed a decade of property tax increases from previous administrations,” Walker said in a statement on Monday. “For the first time in over ten years, the average property taxpayer...

Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett, who is running for governor, blamed Gov. Scott Walker for the city’s debt getting downgraded by Moody’s Investors Service. Barrett, at a press conference in Milwaukee Monday morning, cited three actions by Walker that Barrett said caused the downgrade to Aa2 from Aa1, which keeps the rating in the high-quality, low-credit-risk category. The rating affects the city’s planned $445 million in bond and note offerings later this month and $963 million in existing general obligation bond debt, Reuters said. Barrett said Moody’s cited the city’s reduced ability to raise revenue because Walker and legislative Republicans reduced...

Actual title: The Wisconsin Education Association Council (the largest labor union in Wisconsin) has been caught HIDING survey data that proves Gov. Walker’s leadership and reforms are working. . My Friend,   I received this email from one of the activists in our office and had to share it with you immediately.  The Wisconsin Education Association Council (the largest labor union in Wisconsin) has been caught HIDING survey data that proves Gov. Walker’s leadership and reforms are working.   If we don’t do something to help Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin right now, these labor unions are going to steal...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Unions are facing a make-or-break moment in their campaign to drive Wisconsin's Republican governor from office. "After devoting so much effort, energy and funds to the recall, unions have to show positive results or it will be judged to be a sign of a weakened labor movement," said Gary Chaison, professor at Clark University. The recall primary in Wisconsin is May 8, and the general election is June 5. Such massive, costly campaigns have taken a toll on unions, diverting resources they could have spent helping political allies or organizing new members. "Unions are not bottomless...

Well, I think he can relax. Pretty sure, actually. Governor Scott Walker is facing a recall election in Wisconsin as a result of a pretty impressive union petition drive. Unions aren’t happy about losing some of their collective bargaining rights and actually having to pony up almost as much as private sector workers for their health insurance. Oh! The humanity! But I’m going on record here (oh yeah, Boortz on the record; now THAT’S news) saying that Scott Walker will win, as will the people of Wisconsin. You’re right in wanting a little analysis here to go along with...

Where is Romney at? Romney - being the presumptive GOP frontrunner/nominee - needs to go to or organize at least 2 pro-Walker rallies in April and slate a few (2-3) of them in May: getting more pro-Walker momentum and maintaining it is crucial, and Romney is supposedly going to be the nominee... Who else to stand with Walker right now? Romney going up to Wisconsin from Pennsylvania a few times in April (and May) won't take much time or effort and Romney can quickly go back to Pennsylvania in April after the rallies/fundraisers. Gov. Walker (R) is facing a recall,...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The federal government has warned Wisconsin officials the state's unemployment rate has improved enough to end extended jobless benefits.Wisconsin's unemployment rate had been high enough to qualify jobless people in the state for 13 extra weeks of federal unemployment benefits. But the state's three-month average improved to 7 percent in February, making the state ineligible for the extra money.

Madison - The state medical school disciplined 20 doctors and fined 11 of them up to $4,000 for handing out sick notes to demonstrators at last year's labor protests, newly released records show. The records, requested by the Journal Sentinel last year under the state's open records law, show for the first time the extent of the discipline given to those doctors by the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. In several cases, doctors in more senior positions within the school also had to step away from those roles for a period of four months over one...

Even After New Contribution Levels, State Benefit Packages More Lucrative Than Private Sector Offerings MacIver News Service | April 3, 2012[Madison, Wisc…] Even after the labor reforms ushered in by Act 10, Wisconsin taxpayers pay more than surrounding states to provide insurance to state employees, according to a new study released today.Charts Courtesy HCTrends The analysis by HCTrends found that even after increasing the state employee premium contribution and making plan changes to reduce costs, Wisconsin taxpayers also continue to pay significantly more to provide these benefits than most private�sector employers in the greater Milwaukee area.The study did find that...

A majority of Wisconsin voters now support the effort to recall Republican Governor Scott Walker. A new Rasmussen Reports statewide survey shows that, if the recall election was held today, 52% of Likely Voters would vote to recall Governor Walker and remove him from office. Forty-seven percent (47%) would vote against the recall and let him continue to serve as governor. The survey of 500 Likely Voters in Wisconsin was conducted on March 27, 2012 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports...

Age: 44 Occupation: Wisconsin Governor Elected in the Republican tidal wave of 2010, Walker has become the standard bearer for conservative gains in the Midwest and a champion of trimming budgets and curtailing public unions. On the left, the collective-bargaining restrictions have made Walker the object of unrivaled antipathy. Democrats and union allies filed a recall petition against Walker with a million signatures in January; later this year he's likely to become only the third governor in U.S. history to face a recall vote.

Ok, why should I care? I was notified a while back that I would be in the top 25 Circle of Moms Political Mommy Blogger race, where we are supposed to get people to vote for us to win...nothing. Big deal, right? However, my first inclination was to try to gather those whom I thought would vote for me and ask them to keep voting, (you can vote once a day,) until the competition ends at 4pm PT, 7pm ET on April 4th. So, like most things in my life I forgot about it, until a couple of days ago,...

This is what we see time and again at the hands of the same Left that manufactured a month's long non-troversy over a word Rush Limbaugh spoke. While, on one hand, the left and their media allies feign outrage over Limbaugh, on the other hand, they either willfully ignore or launch vile, sexist attacks against conservative women that go well beyond anything that can in any way be called satire or humor. Wisconsin Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch is a wife, mother, and a cancer survivor. She's currently being targeted for recall and by some of the ugliest personal attacks you'll...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Embattled first-term Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker will face a recall this spring after an election was ordered Friday following the collection of more than 900,000 signatures in the wake of his push against union bargaining rights. The Government Accountability Board voted 5-0 to order the recall, a move that has been expected for weeks given the large number of signatures gathered between November and January. It took 540,208 signatures to trigger a recall. Assuming a Democratic primary is necessary, it will be in just 39 days on May 8. The actual recall vote then will be...

Republican Governor Scott Walker, Lieutenant Governor Kleefisch and two Republican state senators will face a recall vote in Wisconsin and the date of that election, with the likely date of the recall vote being June 5.  A fifth Republican, Senator Pam Galloway, who was also going to face a recall election, has resigned from the state senate.  This leaves the Senate tied 16-16, so  the recall vote in June will determine which party controls the Wisconsin Senate. So is the left winning there?  Wisconsin is a left-leaning state, the sort whose general support Democrats need if they are going to...

Now is the time for all good tea partiers to come to the aid of Wisconsin. Fiscally conservative leaders in the Badger State are under coordinated siege from Big Labor, the White House, the liberal media and the judiciary. The yearlong campaign of union thuggery, family harassment and intimidation of Republican donors and businesses is about to escalate even further. This is the price the Right pays for doing the right thing. The most visible target is Gov. Scott Walker, who faces recall on June 5 over his tough package of state budget and public employee union reforms. Three state...

While Lord Justice Leveson ponders where to draw the ethical line for British journalists, consider the latest ethical row in the United States.Some 25 editorial staff working for Gannett newspapers in Wisconsin have come under fire from their bosses - and some journalists - for taking part in a political ballot.They signed a petition demanding that the state's governor, Scott Walker, be recalled (reasons here).Kevin Corrado, publisher of the Green Bay Press-Gazette, called the journalists' action "disheartening" and said they would face "disciplinary measures." He told his readers: "It has caused us to examine how this could have happened, how...

This just seems so unsporting. After all, these high-school students didn't make threatening calls to the unions that were singing their silly "Solidarity Song" in the capitol rotunda in Madison, to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic: CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO When about 300 Sheboygan Lutheran High School students and supporters piled into the rotunda of the State Capitol in Madison last Thursday after the boys basketball team clinched a trip to the finals for the Division 5 WIAA state championship, they had some time to spare.Sharing the rotunda with a small group of pro-union...

Great Letter from Gov Walker calling the unions out for using children and teachers as "political pawns"....at link

The Wisconsin state Assembly has passed a bill to ban abortion coverage from policies obtained through a health insurance exchange that is to begin in 2014. States are allowed to prohibit abortions under the exchange, which is to be a marketplace for small businesses and individuals to shop for health insurance coverage. Under the bill, abortions would not be covered under policies sold through the exchange except in cases of rape, incest or when the health of the mother is at risk.

MADISON — While there is no disputing the divisiveness and political bitterness Act 10 has created, the law that redefined collective bargaining in Wisconsin has made a dramatic difference for the state’s financially struggling school districts, according to a report slated for release this week. But superintendents tell Wisconsin Reporter they worry about the long-lasting emotional scars left by the contentious reform battle. Wisconsin school districts have realized significant savings either through the implementation of collective bargaining changes or the threat of them, according to an analysis by the Michigan-based Education Action Group Foundation, [1] known as EAG, a nonprofit...

Madison - A Dane County judge permanently enjoined the state's new voter ID law on Monday - the second judge in a week to block the requirement that voters show photo identification at the polls. "A government that undermines the very foundation of its existence - the people's inherent, pre-constitutional right to vote - imperils its legitimacy as a government by the people, for the people, and especially of the people," said the eight-page opinion by Dane County Judge Richard Niess. "It sows the seeds for its own demise as a democratic institution. This is precisely what 2011 Wisconsin Act...

Lest we lose sight of it amid all of the presidential primary news, Wisconsin is going to hold some recall elections. The people have spoken! Petitions have been gathered and now the democratic process will play out in true blue American fashion. So… just when will we be seeing these elections take place? Even the people in charge don’t seem to be exactly sure. The head of the Wisconsin state elections board recommended Friday that any recall elections against Gov. Scott Walker and five other Republicans be held on May 15 and June 12…The full board was to discuss the...

Wisconsin gained an estimated 15,700 private-sector jobs in January while the state's unemployment rate declined to 6.9% from 7.0% in December, according to the most recent monthly unemployment data from the state Department of Workforce Development.

A judge who filed a temporary injunction against the state's new voter identification law also signed a petition seeking the recall of Gov. Scott Walker, who was a staunch supporter of the law.

Ever since they announced their intention to do so, I've been publicly begging Leftists to waste spend tens of millions on a recall campaign against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.  I was convinced that the Democrat-Union coalition would squander precious campaign resources in an quixotic bid to exact revenge on one of their most despised conservative bogeymen.  A new poll from Rasmussen suggests that my instincts were correct.  Wisconsinites -- who have voted to re-elect a conservative state Supreme Court justice and to protect a Republican State Senate majority since Walker's budget fix passed -- now oppose replacing the governor by...