4 ms·

Serious WTF. Is this okay with people in Wisconsin?

bilbo0s 8y ago
OK, what is it that you suggest we do? Wisconsin is corrupt. Very corrupt. What might work for you in squeaky clean Vermont, or wherever, is not going to work here in Wisconsin. It's just not.
- thrmsforbfast 8y ago
  Wisconsin had an extraordinarily well-functioning state government in the very recent past.
  - bilbo0s 8y ago
    (sigh) I've tried to explain this to people from outside Wisconsin before. Why don't I just repost a sort of run down of just a few of the kinds of things you can expect to see from our "extraordinarily well run" government here in Wisconsin: >"We've had our share of bent DA's here in Wisconsin. Probably the best story I can tell you about is a DA that would allow drug dealers and other criminals to "contribute to charity" in lieu of going to jail for their crimes. Of course, all of the "charities" they could contribute to were controlled by he and his buddies. (This way they could make sure all the "contributions" went for the benefit of the local community you see.) It got so bad that drug dealers were routing their shipments through that municipality because if you get caught, you just paid the bribe. I mean, "charity". You didn't have to go to jail. I won't go into too much detail on this one, because it's disgusting. That said, we have a juvenile detention facility where the guards were discovered to have using the boys for... Well, I think you can figure it out. If not just Google "Lincoln Hills". (but I'd recommend just ... yeah... just not googling it.) Moving on, we have something called the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. Basically everyone chips in to a fund, via taxes, and that fund gives money to entrepreneurs and businesses to stimulate economic growth. That's the idea. In practice, whatever politician is in power funnels the money to his/her cronies. They're pretty open about it too. So small businesses in the state end up having to make do with whatever they get out of the federal SBA. Because the big political guys take all the money from WEDC. And that's just scratching the surface with the criminal related stuff. There's all kinds of political and public spending related stuff that happens here all the time. There's the typical police corruption that you need to look out for. Man don't even get me started on Wisconsin's part in the VA nursing home scandal. Wisconsin is so bad that at one point there were 100's of thousands of protesters outside our Capitol building in Madison. We're just a really bent state, and there's not much that can be done about it because of how we're set up. There's a lot going on up here. Despite what you may have heard on Netflix, the corruption up here is not ALL about Steven Avery. Illustrative factoid, there is a restaurant in Madison right on the Capitol Square. It's pretty conveniently located for the state senators and assemblypeople. Kind of a nice place too. What's it's name? "Graft", I kid you not. Located on the ground floor of a building full of lobbyists. I mean, "lawyers". Right across from the Capitol. I know that sounds just WAY too brazen, but it's a true story..." PS - People generally REALLY find the part about the Graft restaurant difficult to believe. I understand. So I encourage you, don't take my word for it. Go ahead, Google it.
    - thrmsforbfast 8y ago
      I lived in WI for years and have family there. Everything mentioned in your post is relatively recent. If you go back even a decade or two, a lot in WI government was working well.
      - Judgmentality 8y ago
        I guess it just depends on what you mean by "very recent," to me that would mean at most 5 years ago (and really I'd think more recently than that because all I can think about when I hear Wisconsin is the 'Making a Murderer' clusterfuck).
        thrmsforbfast 8y ago
        I see. Yeah, I meant more like 10-30 years. I measure governments in terms of "politician generations", so 5-10 years is still "the present" in the sense that anything less than 10 years can very easily encapsulate just a single set of people in leadership.
        restingrobot 8y ago
        Keep in mind that 'Making a Murderer' is heavily dramatized for television purposes. Also the show purposefully leaves out information, https://onmilwaukee.com/movies/articles/evidenceagainstavery.html https://onmilwaukee.com/movies/articles/evidenceagainstavery...
        Judgmentality 8y ago
        They bring up a lot of the missing evidence in the second season. You're allowed to draw your own conclusion from the case, but it's obvious to me the whole thing wasn't just bullshit but that the police department coordinated a coverup for a murder. Even if that wasn't the case, they violated so many laws by illegally ignoring proper procedure that the sheriff, district attorney, and interrogating officers should all lose their jobs and potentially face criminal charges.
    - 8y ago
- bonestamp2 8y ago
  I agree it will take some drastic measures. The article states that the plant needed to be located in the great lakes region since it requires so much water to clean the glass used in the plant, and if they're being allowed to dump toxic chemicals into that water that likely violates international water treaties that exist with Canada, not to mention the other states that depend on the great lakes and the waterways that they feed, for tourism, drinking water, etc. Any, and maybe all, of these parties should sue Wisconsin to stop this deal, or at least stop the environmental impact that is being allowed to go unchecked.
  - vermontdevil 8y ago
    Article states other states are suing.
    - bonestamp2 8y ago
      At the risk of sounding pedantic, it says they "filed legal action". They may have just filed for an injunction.
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        > At the risk of sounding pedantic, it says they "filed legal action". They may have just filed for an injunction. Which is a suit for equitable relief (now, your pedantry might be accurate if excessively pedantic if the claim was that they had filed a lawsuit, since a suit in equity is not a suit at law, but since it was just “suing”, which applies equally to a suit in equity, the pedantry is misplaced even with the possibility you point to.)

OK, what is it that you suggest we do? Wisconsin is corrupt. Very corrupt. What might work for you in squeaky clean Vermont, or wherever, is not going to work here in Wisconsin. It's just not.

thrmsforbfast 8y ago
Wisconsin had an extraordinarily well-functioning state government in the very recent past.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  (sigh) I've tried to explain this to people from outside Wisconsin before. Why don't I just repost a sort of run down of just a few of the kinds of things you can expect to see from our "extraordinarily well run" government here in Wisconsin: >"We've had our share of bent DA's here in Wisconsin. Probably the best story I can tell you about is a DA that would allow drug dealers and other criminals to "contribute to charity" in lieu of going to jail for their crimes. Of course, all of the "charities" they could contribute to were controlled by he and his buddies. (This way they could make sure all the "contributions" went for the benefit of the local community you see.) It got so bad that drug dealers were routing their shipments through that municipality because if you get caught, you just paid the bribe. I mean, "charity". You didn't have to go to jail. I won't go into too much detail on this one, because it's disgusting. That said, we have a juvenile detention facility where the guards were discovered to have using the boys for... Well, I think you can figure it out. If not just Google "Lincoln Hills". (but I'd recommend just ... yeah... just not googling it.) Moving on, we have something called the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. Basically everyone chips in to a fund, via taxes, and that fund gives money to entrepreneurs and businesses to stimulate economic growth. That's the idea. In practice, whatever politician is in power funnels the money to his/her cronies. They're pretty open about it too. So small businesses in the state end up having to make do with whatever they get out of the federal SBA. Because the big political guys take all the money from WEDC. And that's just scratching the surface with the criminal related stuff. There's all kinds of political and public spending related stuff that happens here all the time. There's the typical police corruption that you need to look out for. Man don't even get me started on Wisconsin's part in the VA nursing home scandal. Wisconsin is so bad that at one point there were 100's of thousands of protesters outside our Capitol building in Madison. We're just a really bent state, and there's not much that can be done about it because of how we're set up. There's a lot going on up here. Despite what you may have heard on Netflix, the corruption up here is not ALL about Steven Avery. Illustrative factoid, there is a restaurant in Madison right on the Capitol Square. It's pretty conveniently located for the state senators and assemblypeople. Kind of a nice place too. What's it's name? "Graft", I kid you not. Located on the ground floor of a building full of lobbyists. I mean, "lawyers". Right across from the Capitol. I know that sounds just WAY too brazen, but it's a true story..." PS - People generally REALLY find the part about the Graft restaurant difficult to believe. I understand. So I encourage you, don't take my word for it. Go ahead, Google it.
  - thrmsforbfast 8y ago
    I lived in WI for years and have family there. Everything mentioned in your post is relatively recent. If you go back even a decade or two, a lot in WI government was working well.
    - Judgmentality 8y ago
      I guess it just depends on what you mean by "very recent," to me that would mean at most 5 years ago (and really I'd think more recently than that because all I can think about when I hear Wisconsin is the 'Making a Murderer' clusterfuck).
      - thrmsforbfast 8y ago
        I see. Yeah, I meant more like 10-30 years. I measure governments in terms of "politician generations", so 5-10 years is still "the present" in the sense that anything less than 10 years can very easily encapsulate just a single set of people in leadership.
      - restingrobot 8y ago
        Keep in mind that 'Making a Murderer' is heavily dramatized for television purposes. Also the show purposefully leaves out information, https://onmilwaukee.com/movies/articles/evidenceagainstavery.html https://onmilwaukee.com/movies/articles/evidenceagainstavery...
        Judgmentality 8y ago
        They bring up a lot of the missing evidence in the second season. You're allowed to draw your own conclusion from the case, but it's obvious to me the whole thing wasn't just bullshit but that the police department coordinated a coverup for a murder. Even if that wasn't the case, they violated so many laws by illegally ignoring proper procedure that the sheriff, district attorney, and interrogating officers should all lose their jobs and potentially face criminal charges.
  - 8y ago
bonestamp2 8y ago
I agree it will take some drastic measures. The article states that the plant needed to be located in the great lakes region since it requires so much water to clean the glass used in the plant, and if they're being allowed to dump toxic chemicals into that water that likely violates international water treaties that exist with Canada, not to mention the other states that depend on the great lakes and the waterways that they feed, for tourism, drinking water, etc. Any, and maybe all, of these parties should sue Wisconsin to stop this deal, or at least stop the environmental impact that is being allowed to go unchecked.
- vermontdevil 8y ago
  Article states other states are suing.
  - bonestamp2 8y ago
    At the risk of sounding pedantic, it says they "filed legal action". They may have just filed for an injunction.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > At the risk of sounding pedantic, it says they "filed legal action". They may have just filed for an injunction. Which is a suit for equitable relief (now, your pedantry might be accurate if excessively pedantic if the claim was that they had filed a lawsuit, since a suit in equity is not a suit at law, but since it was just “suing”, which applies equally to a suit in equity, the pedantry is misplaced even with the possibility you point to.)