This one is just fall-over funny. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker boasted at a news conference today that Wisconsin added 9,500 jobs in the month of June, mostly in the tourism sector.
Hmmm. Wisconsin always adds tourism jobs in June, so unless he's taking credit for the existence of summer, the fact that we now have more people selling hot dogs and cleaning campground bathrooms then we did in January is not exactly a shocker.
I can tell you, the biggest boost to tourism actually created by Walker was on State Street in Madison in February and March. The shops are still selling those blue, Wisconsin fist T-shirts.

Still, this is fantastic news! With all these wonderful new jobs - cleaning cottages, flipping burgers, driving ice cream trucks, skimming baby poop out of motel pools - Wisconsin's unemployment rate rose from 7.4% to 7.6% in June!
Whoa! What? How can that be?
The number of jobs "created" would have been higher except for all the job cuts and early retirements in the public sector. You know, those jobs that paid a living wage and have, like, health insurance benefits and stuff? Those jobs that lasted more than three months.
And there are more people looking for work than before, too.
Still not laughing?
Get this. The United States added about 20,000 jobs in June according to most analysts. That means Scott Walker is claiming that almost half of all U.S. job growth occurred in Wisconsin in June. (This is my attempt at a joke, but see my note in the comment section below.)
But wait! There's more!
Minnesota added 13,200 jobs in June, mostly from tourism. I guess that was before their right-wing legislature shut down the state parks and caused restaurants to stop selling beer.
You know what that means? Neighboring cold-weather states Minnesota and Wisconsin together accounted for more new jobs than the entire country in June, just in time for the warm weather!
OK, I get that the math is a little misleading. Some states can add jobs while others lose, but I am totally amused by Walker's boast of "new jobs" being "created" in June because - surprise - the sun came out.
I look forward to his October press conference where he takes blame for the loss of 9,500 jobs in September, and his January, 2012 press conference where he claims credit for all the new jobs created over the Christmas season.
At that January press conference we can also get his reaction to the fact that half a million Wisconsinites just signed recall petitions against him.
UPDATE: I mention this below in the comments, but it's freakin' hilarious. There are right-wing sites seriously making the claim that Scott Walker created "half the new jobs" in America in June. I won't link to them but if you want a laugh, google "half of june jobs wisconsin june 2011".