Please find us a citation.
I asked first.
Clearly hyperbole on my part to say North Dakota would be vacant when shale oil recovery is though. Obviously only areas where the mining was done would be messed up.
Would anyone like to live here?
I think not.
The photo is from Canada, not North Dakota.
Here’s Colorado:
And North Dakota:
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/bakken031313/b18_RTR39FHZ.jpg
So that would be no citation then.
You said that North Dakota and Texas “would be laggards” if it weren’t for the oil boom. If what you said was anywhere close to true, proving it should be easy. Data about job growth by economic sector is available. Why can’t you show us the “laggard” job growth in those two states outside of the energy sector?
Let me just say it plainly: your claim was flatly untrue. I live in North Dakota. I live in Fargo, a long distance away from any oil wells. The economy is booming here and throughout the state. We’ve seen growth in many industries. Scores of software companies have relocated here in the past few years. So have biotech companies, medical records companies, manufacturers, engineering firms, … In North Dakota, virtually every gas station, store, and restaurant has a ‘now hiring’ sign up. That’s not true in the rest of the country.
It’s a basic fact that in general, free-market policies lead to high growth, while liberal tax-and-spend thinking pulls growth rates down. Take a look at this map, which shows growth rates in all 50 states. Big growth rates in the western states, most of which have comparatively low taxes and less regulation. Poor performance in northeast states, which are generally quite liberal and have high taxes. You invoke some special pleading involving the oil boom to explain why North Dakota is growing so much faster than any other state. Oil certainly helps, but states with little or no oil are also growing briskly: South Dakota, Nebraska, Idaho. Meanwhile New York shows just 0.7% growth despite its wealth of shale oil.
How wonderful of you to ask that. Click on the link in the post just before this one, and you’ll see that economic growth in Kansas exceeds the national average. Kansas has one of the lowest employment rates in the country.
So I guess that answers your question about where the jobs are … they’re in Kansas!
Missed edit window: last post should say “lowest unemployment rates”, obviously.
A new Scott Walker ad purportedly of individuals who have landed jobs during his tenure. Problem is, the campaign won’t give out the names of the people “interviewed”, not even when the Milwaukee paper guaranteed their privacy.
The polls are close indeed. But it’s only August.
And I wouldn’t get overconfident if I were you based on the primary election.
Remember, Wisconsin has an open primary. There are a lot of cross over voters. This was especially true in the largest county where normally Republican voters crossed over to vote for Sheriff Clarke in the Democratic primary. (I crossed over to vote against him, BTW). There were few major Republican primaries in the state, and most of them were in sparsely populated counties. Therefore, for many Republican voters crossing over to try and affect the candidates for the other side was an easy decision, if an unethical one.
We’ve discussed the ethics of crossing over in a previous thread.
It’s easier for an empty state to grow than one that already has people and serious development in it. Just like it’s easier for you to put on a pound of muscle, than for Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime.
That said, the mining growth in ND cascades to other industries. If you have a thousand people moving in to work on some energy projects, someone has to make their coffees and build their houses.
So it would probably be harder than looking at a simplistic chart to break out what is due to ND’s energy boom.
The NY Times chimes in. Mostly a rehash of prior coverage, but well written.
- How a politician coordinates a 10:1 money advantage.
Walker denies being aware of the $700,000 donation from a mining company he did big favors for.
In related news, the polling remains close:
Governor’s race remains tight and AG race slightly favors Happ
It occurs to me someone may have a nice lever to use against Walker if he ever signed a thank-you note for that $700K.
How is that possible? They donated $700,000 to Walker and he says he didn’t know? That’s hardly credible.
The company DID give the money to Walker, right?
It’s my understanding that the mining company game the $700k to the Wisconsin Club for Growth (“WCFG”), a 501©(4) group that’s affiliated with the national Club for Growth and is run by R. J. Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican political strategist and former Executive Director of the Wisconsin Republican Party, whose consulting firm managed Walker’s 2010 run as well as his defense against the impeachment.
Wisconsin has a law allowing a district attorney to conduct what’s called a “John Doe investigation”, which lets the DA issue subpoenas and compel testimony to determine if there’s probable cause to press criminal charges against an individual or group.
The governor’s been the subject of 2 John Doe investigations, both by the District Attorney of Milwaukee County. The first, in 2010, led to the arrest of 6 people associated with Walker, two for stealing from a Veteran’s charity, one for contributing to the delinquency of a minor (not a political crime…they found child porn and internet sex talk with a kid when they investigated his computer), one for violating campaign donation limits (he was having his employees donate to the Walker campaign and then reimbursing them), and two for illegally campaigning for Walker using county offices and county time.
The second is the one where the question of the $700k comes up. This probe (which is on hold pending a decision by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals after the Wisconsin Club for Growth sued to stop it claiming first amendment violations), is investigating illegal coordination between Walker and WCFG and other 501©(4) groups during the recall campaign. 501©(4) groups can “inform the public on issues” and can participate in political campaigns “as long as their primary purpose is social welfare”, but they probably can’t coordinate their campaigns with candidates (this is something that WCFG and Walker are contesting).
All the documents in a John Doe proceeding are supposed to be sealed, but on Friday, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals accidentally posted some of the sealed documents on the case’s docket. They took them down later that day, but not before they got set free on the internet and grabbed by the press. The documents include emails to and from Walker and his aides and WCFG coordinating campaign themes and steering donors to WCFG.
The documents also showed that a mining company, Gogebic Taconic, LLC, donated $700,000 to WCFG. Gogebic Taconic is in the process of trying to get legislative permission to open an iron mine in northern Wisconsin. This has proven controversial, with environmental groups concerned about the effect it’ll have, and the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa, who have a reservation nearby, concerned that it’ll pollute the nearby Bad River, which the band uses for wild rice cultivation and fish farming, the two industries that make up most of their income.
Walker claims that he wasn’t aware of the donation, and it’s very possible he’s telling the truth. But Walker, who was a State Assemblyman back in the 1990s who was publicly on record opposing pit mining in northern Wisconsin, did back Gogebic Taconic’s efforts to build this mine, and has been trying to get the project through.
Like I said, it’s quite possible, even probable, that in this case, he didn’t know about the donation and just had a legitimate change of heart…things do look different when you’re Governor vs Assemblyman, and things also look different when you’re a state legislator that nobody pays attention to vs when you’re a governor that’s in the national spotlight and the darling of Tea Party groups. But it’s curious, all the same.
I agree - this is not at all credible. Somebody is clearly bending the truth far beyond the limit.
BigAppleBucky, could you provide a cite, so we can tell if Walker is lying about a mining company donating $700,000 to him without his knowledge, or if someone else is lying thru their teeth, and no mining company donated $700,000 to Scott Walker without his knowledge?
Thanks in advance. It will be good to clear this up.
Regards,
Shodan
Bricker was being facetious. The fact is, the mining company did not donate $700,000 to Walker directly. They donated it to an organization (Wisconsin Club for Growth) and the anti-Walker partisans claim (without any proof of course) that Walker knew about it.
That’s a great summary. The only thing I would add is the reason the Seventh Circuit is considering the issue: the prosecution lost at the district court, and Judge Randa enjoined the investigation.
Actually, now that I think about it, a couple more things.
The prosecutors allege that Walker’s actions in steering donors to the 501(c)(4) group was illegal.
But just so we’re clear:
Steering political contributors to 501(c)(4)s is perfectly legal.
Those examples are not posted as a tu quoque, of course, but as evidence that the practice of steering donors to 501(c)(4) organizations is done openly by major national politicians.
But that isn’t at all what was claimed.
No no no - I need the cite, so I can tell if Scott Walker is lying thru his teeth.
Or not.
BigAppleBucky, I am from Wisconsin, and I have most of my side of the family there, so I have a sort of vested interest in doing what I can to ensure that elections there are not affected by distortions of the truth. Please, cite what you said, so I can encourage my family and friends there not to vote for the candidate whose side is twiting the truth. Thanks!
Regards,
Shodan
As I said, I’m hoping for a signed thank-you note. Considering how carefully he coordinated the fund raising efforts of the Club for Growth and how he grubbed around the entire country going after donations in 2011 and 12, it’s hard to imagine him not knowing about the $700K. He knew lots of lots of other donations as the e-mails showed.
But I have no evidence that he specifically knew about this one. But it sure smells fishy - in the political sense.