Gee, any idea why?

Army in Worst Recruiting Slump in Decades

WASHINGTON - The Army is closing the books on one of the leanest recruiting years since it became an all-volunteer service three decades ago, missing its enlistment target by the largest margin since 1979 and raising questions about its plans for growth.

Green, Ryan use weasel words to try to keep tainted DeLay money

At least two House Republicans have figured out how to return money to Tom DeLay, the ethically challenged GOP leader who had to step aside after being indicted on corruption charges this week.

But Wisconsin Republicans' bright lights in the House, Mark Green and Paul Ryan, can't seem to figure it out. It's illegal to return the money, they claim. It's already spent. Bullfeathers.

First, USA Today reports:

WASHINGTON — At least two Republicans in the House of Representatives say they will return money to Rep. Tom DeLay's political action committee now that the
former majority leader has been indicted for allegedly conspiring to violate Texas campaign fundraising laws.

Reps. Jeb Bradley of New Hampshire and Heather Wilson of New Mexico said they would return contributions from Americans for a Republican Majority, the political action committee DeLay started to help elect GOP candidates to Congress. Known as ARMPAC, it is separate from Texans for a Republican Majority, or TRMPAC, which is at the center of the charge against DeLay.

ARMPAC, which has not been charged with wrongdoing, has given nearly $3.5 million to House and Senate candidates since 1998, according to the non-profit Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign cash. It has contributed $250,000 to candidates running for re-election next year.

Bradley, in his second term, was the first to renounce DeLay's money. He said he's returning $15,000 contributed in 2002 and 2004 to "remove any questions that may arise about contributions."

Wilson's campaign committee will give back $10,000 contributed for her 2006 campaign. She isn't returning nearly $38,000 she's received since 1998.

Meanwhile, back in the Badger State, , Green has received more than $29,000 and Ryan more than $25,000 from DeLay's political action committee.

Green's campaign tells the Journal Sentinel:

[Campaign Manager Mark]Graul said Green legally could not return the donations.

"If we wrote a check to 'Tom DeLay for Congress,' we'd be in violation" of federal law, which sets limits on the size of gifts to federal campaign committees, Graul said.

Also, Graul said, "that money has been since spent, so there is no contribution to return."

First of all, the money didn't come from DeLay's campaign committee, it came from his political action committee, so no one would expect a check to "Tom DeLay for Congress." It most llikely could be returned to the PAC if Green wanted to find a way. It is complicated a little by the fact that Green took hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal PAC money, including DeLay's, then laundered it by transferring $1.3-million to his state campaign fund to run for governor. State and federal laws are different -- but where there's a will there's a way.

As for the money being spent, Graun is spinning so fast it's funny he hasn't screwed himself into the ground. Green's campaign has always has far more than $29,000 in the bank, so DeLay's money wasn't "spent."

Paul Ryan didn't handle it any better:

But Ryan said Thursday, "There is nothing to give back; it was two campaigns ago."

"It would be illegal for us to give that back," Ryan added. "I'm not interested in breaking the law, either."

Joe Wineke, Democratic Party chair who called for Green and Ryan to give back the dirty money, checked a little farther. (Surprised that he didn't take them at their word?) Wineke had suggested that if he couldn't return it, Green should give the money to charity, but Green said that wasn't legal either.

Wineke found another legal option for Green and helped Ryan out, too. From a Wineke news release:

Congressman Mark Green misled the people of Wisconsin by saying there was no way he could get rid of the money. Yet, according to Wisconsin State Statutes 11.25(2)(b), Green could give the money to a nonpartisan campaign to increase voter registration or participation. [What is Wineke saying? Green's goal is to keep people from voting, not increase turnout.--Xoff.]

“It’s time to stop the misleading statements, come clean, and return this ill-gotten money,” said Joe Wineke, Chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. “If Congressman Green really wanted to, he could donate this money today. Mark Green has already given enough money to Tom DeLay by contributing to his legal defense fund. He should take advantage of this opportunity to give this money to an organization where it will be put to good use.”

But the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) said today that campaign contributions from DeLay can be refunded, despite Ryan’s claims that it would be illegal. According to the FEC, a refund to DeLay’s committee would not be considered a contribution, so it would not be subject to federal PAC limits candidates must otherwise abide by during a calendar year.

“Paul Ryan doesn’t need to worry about breaking the law, because the FEC has said it’s perfectly legal for him to return this questionable money back to Tom DeLay,” Wineke said. “Congressman Ryan should show the people of Wisconsin that he doesn’t condone the corruption and scandal that have plagued Republicans in Washington by immediately returning DeLay’s dirty money."

Right-to-lifers reprimand senators who dare to vote their consciences

Wisconsin Right To Life, which seems to own a majority of Wisconsin legislators lock, stock and barrel, couldn't believe that some of their wholly-owned state senators actually had the courage to vote for an amendment the "right-to-life" extremists opposed.

The amendment by State Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, to exempt therapeutic cloning for stem cell research from an anti-cloning bill, failed on a 17-16 vote, and the bill subsequently passed and will go to Gov. Jim Doyle, who has promised to veto it. (See earlier post. Darling shows courage, then caves in to extremists.

The Capital Times reports:

"It is difficult to express the sadness we feel that three pro-life senators believe it is morally acceptable to create human embryos via cloning so that they can be used in biomedical experiments that will kill them," Susan Armacost, legislative director of the group, said in a news release on Thursday.

"Well prior to the state Senate votes on AB 499, Wisconsin Right to Life made it crystal clear to every senator that we would consider a vote for the Darling amendment to be a vote against the bill itself, regardless of how a senator might vote on final passage," she added. "We consider the key vote in regard to AB 499 to be the Darling amendment. The vote on that amendment shows which senators are comfortable with creating human life for the express purpose of destroying it for medical experiments."

The three senators named in the news release are Sens. Michael Ellis, R-Neenah; Jeffrey Plale, D-Milwaukee; and Robert Cowles, R-Green Bay. All three, despite their support for the therapeutic cloning exemption, voted for the full ban after the amendment failed to muster enough votes for passage...

Armacost said in an interview that her group called the three senators on the carpet because each had pledged in a pre-election questionnaire that they would not support cloning for any purpose.

"That's why we're so shocked and saddened," she said. "Obviously on this issue they just feel it's acceptable to create human life and destroy it."

During debate this week on the cloning bill, Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison, said that his Republican colleagues were afraid to oppose the legislation because of the intimidation tactics of Wisconsin Right to Life.

Darling, who sponsored the amendment, also voted for final passage but somehow escaped their wrath and was not mentioned in the release.

Meanwhile, State Sen. Roger Breske, D-Eland, the Democrat who provided the winning margin to table Darling's amendment, goes merrily on his way. There seems to be no consequence for jumping ship and voting against his caucus and the governor. No one says a word.

No wonder Right-to-Life has a disproportionate amount of influence, even though a majority of voters are pro-choice and pro-stem cell research. They play for keeps, we don't. The only elected official liberals seem to want to hold accountable is Jim Doyle, while Democratic legislators wander off the reservation at will, and progressives just assume Doyle will save them with yet another veto. All the more reason to make sure Doyle and his veto are still in the East Wing come 2007.

Scott Walker's phony 'freeze'

Dusk is falling outside the Walker residence as Scott Walker, back from a tough day of cracking down on lazy judges, is greeted by his wife.

Scott: Hi, Honey, I'm home.

Tonette: Hi, Scooter. Why so glum? Tough day at the office?

Scott: Pretty rough. No matter how hard I try, I can't get my budget to balance.

Tonette: That's too bad. I got our household budget to balance today.

Scott: Really? I thought we were way overextended. What did you do?

Tonette: Well, I had this great idea. I just quit paying the mortgage.

Scott: You can't just not pay. They'll get you later, and charge you more interest and fees and who knows what.

Tonette: Maybe so, maybe not. Maybe we won't live that long. Maybe we'll win the lottery. Maybe the mortgage company will agree to take less. Maybe they'll lose our file. Who knows? All I know is we're getting through to the end of the month.

Scott: Thanks, Honey. I think you're on to something...

---

And so Scott Walker proposes a "tax freeze" budget for Milwaukee County, despite the fact that costs of health care, fuel, and other items are increasing from last year. What's his secret? He just doesn't pay $27-million that's due to the pension fund.

The Journal Sentinel reports:

In his 2006 budget address to the County Board, Walker did not mention his pension-funding plan but said he did not want to let the ongoing cost of "horrific" pension sweeteners approved by former County Executive F. Thomas Ament force additional trims in crucial county safety-net services.

Milwaukee County saw a flood of retirements in 2004 under the new benefits. That, pension-fund investment losses early in the decade and previous underfunding of the annual contribution by Walker, Ament and the County Board have pushed the 2005 requested contribution to $45.9 million. Walker proposes to fund $19.2 million of that, about 42% of the amount requested by the Pension Board.

Walker portrayed the underfunding of the annual pension payment as a way to spark debate over trimming pension benefit levels for county employees, as he proposed recently.

But unless that benefit change happens, the underfunding would mean that county taxpayers will actually pay more for the Ament-era pension enhancements. That's because the pension fund would charge the county for the $27 million shortfall, with interest tacked on, in taxpayer contributions to the fund in future years.

Walker wants a related change that would spread that repayment over 30 years, compared to the current five-year payback.

"Wow," said Pension Board Chairman Walter Lanier, who expressed surprise at the size of the shortfall. That board will study the impact on the viability of the fund, he said.

Supervisor Richard Nyklewicz Jr., chairman of the County Board's Finance Committee, called the pension contribution shortfall "irresponsible."

Supervisors will be hard-pressed to replace the $27 million pension contribution shortfall without cutting county services. Under the state's new limits on local taxation, Milwaukee County can raise property taxes by only $8.5 million, or 3.7%.

So Walker, as usual, has proposed a political budget that he hopes will get him through another year and closer to the next election. Next year's budget, conveniently, won't come until after the primary for governor.

But sooner or later, someone's going to have to pay the piper -- with interest. The idea that county workers are going to give back any significant pensions benefits is pie in the sky. As the City of Milwaukee found out, even if the unions agree the courts take a dim view of taking away benefits that people have already earned. The city and county systems are not identical, but in case after case the courts ruled that the city could not reduce benefits. Walker might want to ask his friend Bradley DeBraska, retired police union boss, about that.

Walker asked the voters a year ago to approve a scheme for the county to borrow money long-term to pay off pension obligations. The voters said no. But Walker seems to have done it anyway.

Yet the Journal Sentinel gives him a pass. On the editorial page, the paper credits Walker for keeping his tax promise. It does note:

Walker took another gamble of sorts by putting only $19.2 million in the budget to cover the county's pension obligations, far short of what is needed. Walker is hoping county unions will agree to concessions in their pension benefit levels in new labor contracts. We hope he's right since, as Walker says, the pension enhancements passed under his predecessor are costing the county a bundle and may eventually force the county to make even deeper cuts in service and staff in the future. But we would also hate to see the emphasis on the pension givebacks threaten other concessions the unions might agree to on health insurance, which could also save a lot of money.

Yes, and if gas prices fell to $1 a gallon that would save a lot of money, too.

Walker slashed the court budget, saying the state should pay for the court system, not the county. Maybe, in his campaign for governor, he will explain what state services he would cut to pay for the courts, since he is committed to not raising state taxes, either.

Walker's budget is phony through and through. But by creating the illusion that he has proposed a tax freeze, the onus is on the County Board for any increase in taxes. If the board passes an honest budget, the levy will go up, but Walker will claim innocence.

I guess we should be thankful he at least put $19-million of the $46-million owed the pension fund into his budget. He could have just decided to pay nothing and declare a $19-million tax cut, which would be just as honest as his phony "freeze."

Bennett, who broadcasts his racist views,wants to educate more Wisconsin kids

"I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." -- Bill Bennett, former Secretary of Education, author of "The Book of Virtue" and conservative poster boy, in a radio interview.

To be fair, he added that it probably wasn't a good or workable idea, like Richard Nixon saying,"That would be wrong" into the hidden microphone to cover his butt. You can read the transcript, and put the comment into context, at Media Matters.

No, Bennett didn't suggest aborting black fetuses. He was talking hypothetically. But no matter how you slice it, his comments were racist.

Bennett, by the way, operates a virtual school in Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Virtual Academy. The Northern Ozaukee School District-based school is run by K12, a for-profit educational business founded by Bennett.

That virtual academy is the subject of a lawsuit by the state teachers' union, WEAC, which has been going on for a couple of years.

But Bennett is continuing to look for more business in Wisconsin, and has hired three lobbyists to represent his interests -- Nate Elias, Bill McCoshen, and Eric Petersen.

Presumably their jobs don't include defending Bennett's comments.

But it is hard to imagine any Wisconsin school district wanting to do business with Bennett after he shared some of his innermost thoughts this week.

Bucher assembling cast of losers

Quick, what do Steve King, Mark Neumann, and John Gillespie have in common?

Yes, they're all out there on the extreme right fringe of the Republican Party, but that's not the answer I was looking for.

True, they are all co-chairs of the Paul Bucher for Attorney General campaign, but that's not it, either.

Correct answer: All three have lost statewide elections in Wisconsin, and none of them has ever won one.

Neumann lost to Sen. Russ Feingold, Gillespie lost to Sen. Herb Kohl, and King didn't even win his party's nomination, losing a Senate primary to Susan Engeleiter, who went on to lose to Kohl. Remember her? No? Remember Steve King? No? Remember any of those losers?

If that campaign committee ever actually gets together, they should all have a lot of good advice about what not to do. Bob Welch, Russ Darrow and Tim Michels should be signing on any day now.

(Bucher's campaign could use an editor. The release announcing Gillespie said he was joining the campaign on the "heals" of Bucher winning two straw polls.)

Brace yourself for sliming of Ronnie Earle; Problem is, record shows he's not partisan

The right wing and Republican radio is coming to Tom DeLay's defense in their usual fashion -- trying to slime the prosecutor in the case, Ronnie Earle. DeLay called him "an unabashed partisan zealot," and Charlie Sykes was warming up to go after Earle this morning, but I got to my destination and turned off the car radio, so didn't hear it. Fox News predictably jumped right in, echoing DeLay's false claim.

You can bet they'll do all they can do discredit Earle. That may not be so easy, judging from this Los Angeles Times story:

Prosecutor Takes Aim at Both Sides of Aisle
Although DeLay calls Ronnie Earle an 'unabashed partisan zealot,' others say the Austin district attorney shows no favoritism.

By Scott Gold, Times Staff Writer

HOUSTON — In the 1980s, Jim Mattox was the attorney general of Texas and one of the most powerful figures in the state — mentioned as a future governor and, maybe, more. Today, he is a real estate lawyer.

A turning point came in 1983, when the district attorney in Austin, Ronnie Earle, indicted Mattox on bribery charges. He was acquitted, but the damage was done. Mattox had spent $300,000 on attorneys. His political career began to peter out.

"Ronnie Earle had visions of grandeur," said Mattox, now 62. "He was using it as a stepping stone."

Two decades later, Earle is going after another powerful Texas politician, and the defense is no different. When he indicted U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay on Wednesday, the Texas Republican lashed out at Earle, calling him an "unabashed partisan zealot."

Just one hitch: Earle may be a Democrat, but, he said, so were 12 of the 15 politicians he has indicted over the years, including Mattox. Even Mattox said Wednesday that Earle long had targeted people on both sides of the political aisle, roiling the halls of power in Austin — and now Washington — at every turn.

"He had a very negative impact on my life," Mattox said. But in DeLay's case, he added, "I think Earle is carrying out his responsibility."

Fred Lewis, director of Campaigns for People, an Austin group that works to reduce the influence of money on government, called the politics-as-usual defense the "standard response" here to an Earle indictment.

"Every single person he has indicted, Democrat or Republican, has claimed politics," Lewis said. "That's what people don't understand. I think Ronnie Earle has just done his job. The people that are criticizing the indictments don't know one thing about Texas law or the facts. And frankly, they need to be quiet and let the criminal justice process work."

Republicans are hardly convinced of that, and they accused Earle on Wednesday of wasting tax dollars with a "politically motivated and manufactured indictment" — and of sapping public resources at a time when they are needed to recover from Hurricane Rita.

"He is a small man with a big grudge," said Republican Party of Texas Chairwoman Tina Benkiser. "And that is a dangerous combination. He's abusing the very system he was elected to protect."

Earle has taken pains to project a squeaky-clean image, at one point even accusing himself of a misdemeanor when he discovered that his campaign finance reports had been filed late. Still, he has not always remained above the political fray.

Earle recently said that being called partisan by DeLay was akin to "being called ugly by a frog." At a Democratic fundraiser in May, he called DeLay a "bully." And he has said that ambition and outrage over what he sees as an illegal fundraising scheme devised by DeLay and his associates prompted him to postpone his retirement to prosecute the case.

Raised on a ranch in Birdville, Texas — which had a population of 107 when he was born and hasn't grown much since — Earle worked as a lifeguard as a youth, participated in student government and earned the rank of Eagle Scout.

He was elected to the Texas House in 1972 and became the Travis County district attorney in 1977. Under Texas law, that office also controls the public integrity unit responsible for prosecuting alleged misconduct by politicians, regardless of where they live in the state.

GOP activists have sought to take that power away from Earle, but haven't succeeded.

Within a year of taking office, Earle indicted former Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Yarbrough on perjury charges; Yarbrough fled to Grenada, and eventually served time in a state penitentiary. Earle also went after a state treasurer, state House speaker and several Democratic legislators, winning convictions or plea bargains in each of those cases.

George Shipley — a political operative who worked for the late Bob Bullock, a Democrat and one of the most powerful figures in modern Texas politics — said Wednesday that over the years Earle had taken plenty of heat from Democrats in Austin.

Earle went after Bullock — who was last elected as George W. Bush's lieutenant governor — on several occasions, although he never brought an indictment. Bullock routinely described Earle in terms that are "not printable in a family newspaper," Shipley said.

Still, Shipley said, Earle is not prone to conducting witch hunts; he recalled occasions when Earle sent GOP legislators letters reminding them that it was poor form to step off of state-owned airplanes wearing golf cleats and carrying their clubs.

"Ronnie is a maverick," Shipley said. "The argument that he is a hard-charging partisan with a hidden agenda is not supported by the facts."

One time, however, Earle brought now-U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Republican, to trial on ethics charges. He dropped the case at the last minute — something GOP activists seized upon as proof that he was trying to humiliate Hutchison because of her party affiliation.

"Nobody would ever accuse Ronnie of being nonpartisan," said Alan Sager, a professor at the University of Texas in Austin and the chairman of the Travis County Republican Party.

Today, Sager said, Earle is merely going after DeLay in an effort to hurt the Republican Party and President Bush. And while DeLay's immediate response was to attack the prosecutor Wednesday, Sager said, the congressman would have a more definitive defense at trial: the 1st Amendment.

"This is a case of free speech," he said. "We're not talking about people who committed crimes. We're talking about people who were involved in political campaigns and were spending money.

"Ronnie Earle wants to criminalize political activity."

Green, Ryan tainted by DeLay money; One Republican says he'll give it back

This is news:

The first Republican member of Congress has decided to return tainted campaign contributions from one of Rep. Tom DeLay's many political slush funds. Rep. Jeb Bradley of New Hampshire is giving back the $15,000.

Which leads to the question: What about Wisconsin's Mark Green and Paul Ryan, who have received $29,414 and $25,390 respectively from DeLay's PAC? Eye on Wisconsin points out that both Green and Ryan also have donated to DeLay's legal defense fund.

Ryan may be able to ride it out, but this could get sticky for Green, who's running for governor. Checking Xoff's Greatest Hits file, I find this entry on April 12: Green Steps in DeLay Doo-doo.

Ryan, you may recall, has had many nice things to say about DeLay, but a mysterious "scheduling conflict" kept him away from a testimonial dinner for DeLay after he got into ethical trouble. But he's still in DeLay's pocket.

Badger Blues says:

Tom DeLay gets away with his corruption because the vast, silent majority of the Republican caucus doesn’t give a damn about clean government. They all benefit from Mr DeLay’s shenanigans, either directly, like Messrs. Green and Ryan, or indirectly, by leveraging all that money to strengthen the Republican majority in Congress. Google “Texas redistricting” and you’ll see what I mean (”Georgia redistricting” and “Ohio redistricting” will yield similar results).

Two hundred fory-one sitting members of Congress have taken money from DeLay's committee. Here's a list.

So far, one has said he will give it back. Mr. Green? Mr. Ryan? We can't hear you.

Nobody wins the Blame Game

Is the Hotline's Blogometer stealing my stuff? From its Sept. 28 edition:

KATRINA RESPONSE: No One Wins The Blame Game -- You Only Lose

Exactly, as this post on my Blame Game board game explains, it's a game nobody wins. Try as you might, you'll never get out of New Orleans. But if you buy a game it will help hurricane victims.

I'll probably continue shameless plugs for this product until a reader boycott develops. Or are we already there?

Darling shows courage, then caves into extremists on stem cell research

State Sen. Alberta Darling took a courageous and compassionate stand on Tuesday.

She defied Wisconsin Right to Life, which pulls the strings of every Republican and too many Democrats in the legislature, to take a stand on something she felt strongly about.

Darling, a River Hills Republican, proposed an amendment to an anti-cloning bill (AB-499)pushed by the extremist right-to-lifers, to exempt therapeutic stem cell research from the bill, but still ban human cloning.

Darling, like many state and national legislators, has some personal experience that has shaped her views. Her 60-year-old brother suffers from multiple sclerosis, one of the diseases for which stem cell research offers hope of an eventual cure.

Banning therapeutic research would deny hope to people like her brother, she told fellow Senators during a sometimes emotional debate on the amendment and the bill.

One of Wisconsin's "great strengths" is medical research, including on stem cells, that began on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, Darling said, according to the Journal Sentinel's story. Wisconsin is a national leader in stem cell research, despite the Republican legislature's attempts to restrict it.

Darling's amendment lost 17-16. Two other Republicans, Robert Cowles and Mike Ellis, also had the courage to vote with her.

But the next day all three lost their backbone and voted for the bill as it passed 21-12 and went to Gov. Doyle, who will veto it. Democrat Jeff Plale did the same thing, voting for Darling's amendment, then voting for the bill without the amendment.

So Darling voted -- in her own words -- to deny hope to her brother and others who suffer from MS, spinal cord injuries, Alzheimer's, juvenile diabetes, and other diseases for which stem cell research holds out hope for a cure.

Why? Fear of retaliation from the group Democrat Robert Jauch called “Right to Lie," charging them with intimidating lawmakers and intentionally distributing inaccurate information about legislators who oppose their opinions.

“Did the Right to Life people get to you?” State Sen. Fred Risser asked Darling. “I’m just shocked… I’m just amazed with the 180-degree turn.”

"My glass is half full," said Darling, who said it was important to ban human cloning. She said she hopes the debate over therapeutic cloning will be revisited. That won't happen as long as Right-to-Lie is pulling the strings.

"The real purpose of the bill is to restrict stem cell research, which holds enormous potential for our state as well as the promise of curing juvenile diabetes, spinal cord injuries and Parkinson’s disease,” Gov. Jim Doyle said in a statement. Doyle has some personal experience, too; his mother, Ruth, has Parkinson's.

"Allowing our scientists to search for cures to the world’s deadliest diseases isn’t about being liberal or conservative. It’s about being compassionate," Doyle said. "I do not understand how anyone can, in good conscience, tell a family whose child is suffering from a life-threatening disease that politics is more important than finding a cure."

In the long run, this is an issue likely to hurt Republican candidates. The voters --even Republicans -- overwhelmingly support embryonic stem cell research. Being pushed by special interest extremists to take a view that is far out of the mainstream could have some serious political consequences. May poll

Dubya Is Fredo says State Sen. Joe Leibham, R-Sheboygan, who sponsored the bill, is trying to suck up to the right-wing extremists as he gears up for what could be a tough reelection campaign in '06.

Burning the furniture to heat the White House

In his final Earth Day message last April, the late Senator Gaylord Nelson denounced the Bush administration plan to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, saying it was like burning the furniture in the White House to keep the first family warm.

But we know how those tree-huggers exaggerate. Or do they? Read on, from the Washington Post this week:

Document Causes Roosevelt Island Uproar

By Eric M. Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer

Imagine Theodore Roosevelt Island filled with strip malls and hundreds of luxury townhouses, all with breathtaking views of the Potomac River and the monuments. A new bridge would connect the newly developed island with George Washington Memorial Parkway.

That vision of the island's future is contained in a House Resources Committee "brainstorming" document that was inadvertently released to the public. The committee's chairman, Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) is looking for ways to raise $2.4 billion in new federal revenue.

The document suggests as options selling Roosevelt Island, in the Potomac between Washington and Arlington, to residential or commercial developers, and selling 15 other national parks across the county for "energy or commercial development."

"Imagine taking the island named after the greatest conservation president of all time and turning it into condo developments?'' said Craig Obey, spokesman for the National Parks Conservation Association. "I don't know what even to say about that.''

For what noble cause?

Two Wisconsin soldiers were killed and a third was injured by shrapnel when a roadside bomb exploded as they drove past in Iraq.

Killed were Michael Wendling, 20, of Mayville, and Andy Wallace 25, of Oshkosh, who were members of Fond du Lac-based Charlie Co. of the Wisconsin National Guard 2nd Battalion, 127th Infantry.

Injured in the explosion was a high school friend of Wendling - Jeremy Roskopf, who suffered shrapnel wounds in his legs...

Wendling ...was a student on the Dean's List at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee when his unit was activated... .

Wallace taught physical education at Cook Elementary School in Oshkosh and at Oshkosh North High School, where he was an assistant wrestling coach and part-time physical education teacher for cognitively disabled students.

Staff members at Cook gasped in shock after being notified of Wallace's death at a Monday meeting called by the principal.

"He was a kind, wonderful, positive man," said third-grade teacher Tracy Zangl. "He wanted students to be healthy in every sense of the word, physically, mentally and in attitude."

Source: Journal Sentinel.

Bush's' Dept. of Fraud, Waste & Abuse

Molly Ivins says George W. Bush has broken the first commandment of governing: Thou Shalt Not Steal the People's Money. She says he has brought us beaucoup fraud, waste and abuse, not necessarily in that order.

Read Molly's archive at Working for Change.

Play the Blame Game for hurricane relief

Finally, it is time to play The Blame Game.

Brownie played it yesterday, pointing fingers at everyone except himself and FEMA.

Now it's our turn, with a new board game based on Katrina and all proceeds to benefit victims of the hurricane.

I was in Texas visiting friends two weeks ago when the Republican "This is not the time for the blame game" talking points were issued, and everyone from the President to the precinct committeeman said it over and over.

So my artist buddy and I, both yellow-dog Democrats, decided maybe it was time. This is the result:

---

"Those who complain about the blame game?
They're usually to blame." – Jon Stewart.

“Bush says he doesn’t want to play the ‘Blame Game.’
Makes sense. Never heard of a chicken who wanted
to play the ‘Extra Crispy’ game”. --Will Durst

It is called “The Blame Game,” and the object is to get out of New Orleans – but there is no way out on the board, as players encounter the same problems the city’s residents did before, during, and after the hurricane.

When players reach the Gretna bridge, where sheriff’s deputies turned back evacuees, they are told to “Give up your food and water and go back to the start.”

Landing on some squares calls for drawing a blame card, which announces a new development and tells who to blame. (Hint: W "wins" this part.)

Sample card:“Stay on your roof and lose a turn. The helicopters have been diverted for a photo op with the President. Blame Bush.”

Or: "Wait in line three hours to get help from FEMA. When you get to the front, they give you a piece of paper that says to come back in three days. Lose 2 turns. Blame Bush."

Games are $10 plus shipping and handling from Zzzingers.com with all proceeds going to help Katrina victims.

Here's a free peek at the game board and blame cards.

There is no marketing budget for this product, so your e-mail and word of mouth are important. If you like it, please spread the word.

---

Here's a later post with an Austin American-Statesman column about the game.

If it weren't for the honor . . .

The witness list for Brian Burke's upcoming trial is now public, and your humble scribe, Xoff, is one of 169 potential witnesses listed.

As the fellow said in the Mark Twain story, after being tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail, "If it weren't for the honor, I'd just as soon have walked."

Burke and his lawyers, and DA Brian Blanchard, certainly cast a wide net -- lobbyists, current and former legislators, Capitol staffers, a university president, the attorney general,political fundraisers, labor leaders, and sundry others.

It would be a great invitation list for a political fundraiser, except that Roth Judd of the Ethics Board is on the list, too.

Some of the names on the list suggest that Burke, charged with multiple counts of political corruption, may try an "everybody was doing it" defense. Others, presumably, are character witnesses to say Burke is a good guy.

I have no idea why I'm on the list, but I was put there by the defense, I am told. Burke's lawyers have never contacted me, even to say they were listing me, and they have no idea what I would say on the witness stand. I can't imagine anything I would say that could help him.

The Journal Sentinel's Capitol blog has more.

Gov's barbecue's net cost: $250 or less

So the governor's barbecue for the news media, it turns out, cost about $400. About 20 or so people reimbursed the cost of the food, so that's maybe $140-200 that came back. Net cost, worst case, is maybe $250.

Not quite in the same league as Scott Walker's $19,000 ticket giveaway. Walker gave more than $500 worth of tickets to the Green Bay Press Gazette alone, and didn't limit the freebies to the media. His defenders argue that was for a "public purpose" -- getting Walker some face time on outstate TV to improve his name recognition in his run for governor. (Oops -- they say it's to promote tourism. Right.)

Jessica McBride, who has been on the $250 barbecue scandal like yellow on mustard, obtained the costs and list of payees and deadbeats through an open records request. I won't bore you with the details, but the public probably wants to know that the most expensive food item was the $45 carrot cake. The open records request didn't ask who ate carrot cake, so that will remain one of life's little mysteries.

Double whammy for storm victims

The New York Times, in a page one story, discusses the latest double whammy to befall Hurricane Katrina victims -- a tougher new bankruptcy law. Wisconsin's hero, Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, has managed to single-handedly insure that victims will get no relief from the new law, by refusing to even hold a hearing to consider it. Not heartless, though, the Journal Sentinel says. Just wrong.

The Times:

Storm Victims May Face Curbs On Bankruptcy

By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH
and RIVA D. ATLAS

When Congress agreed this spring to tighten the bankruptcy laws and crack down on consumers who took on debt irresponsibly, no one had the victims of Hurricane Katrina in mind.

But four weeks after New Orleans flooded and tens of thousands of other residents of the Gulf Coast also lost their homes and livelihoods, a stricter new personal bankruptcy law scheduled to take effect on Oct. 17 is likely to deliver another blow to those dislocated by the storm.

The law was intended to keep individuals from taking on debts they had no intention of paying off. But many once-solvent Katrina victims are likely to be caught up in the net intended to catch deadbeats.

Right after Hurricane Katrina struck, several lawmakers - mostly Democrats but including some Senate Republicans - suggested that storm victims along the Gulf Coast should get relief from the new law's stricter provisions, which are intended to screen filers by income and make those with higher incomes repay their debts over several years. Under the old law, which remains in effect until mid-October, many more filers can have their debts canceled quickly in federal bankruptcy courts.

But House Republicans, who fought off a proposed amendment that would have made bankruptcy filings easier for victims of natural disasters, said there was no reason to carve out a broad exemption just because of the storm.

Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, rejected the notion of reopening the legislation, saying it already included provisions that would ensure that people left "down and out" by the storm would still be able to shed most of their debts. Lawmakers who lost the long fight over the law, he said, "ought to get over it," according to The Associated Press.

A White House spokesman, Trent Duffy, said the administration "doesn't see a lot of merit" in calls to delay the law's effective date but was considering making allowances for hurricane victims.

Goliath wins in Jefferson

David Olsen, the Jefferson alderman who dared to vote against Wal-Mart, lost his recall election today.

Results:

Recall Election Results

ALDERPERSON AT LARGE (RECALL)

Chris Havill 880 VOTES

David Olsen 815 VOTES

Misc. Write Ins 4 VOTES

Maybe Bucher didn't write the letter

Chris Micklos gives Waukesha DA Paul Bucher the benefit of the doubt, and concludes that some intern must have written the flippant letter to AG Peg Lautenschlager that's discussed in the post below. Bucher wants paper to do his job.

Micklos writes, in a letter to Bucher:

Surely, a man of your stature—the duly elected District Attorney of Waukesha County and candidate for the highest law enforcement post in the state—would never write such an infantile and unprofessional missive as the one attributed to you and dated September 26, 2005. Between the sarcastic tone, the condescending language, and the use of such childish phrases like “just so you know”, the letter—had it actually been written by you or with your consent—would indicate an individual without the personal maturity or professional integrity to drive an ice cream truck, much less serve as District Attorney of one of Wisconsin’s largest counties.

I think Micklos is on to something. Bucher should investigate, find the culprit who wrote that letter, and see that he (or she) never works for him again.

Read Micklos' entire letter.

Bucher wants paper to do his job

Republicans are chortling over an exchange between Waukesha DA Paul Bucher and AG Peg Lautenschlager, whose job he's seeking. They think Bucher scored some real points. I think he comes off looking like someone asking the newspaper to do his job.

The tit-for-tat exchanges are about political telephone calls at state expense, made by a former staffer to State Sen. Alberta Darling. The staffer, Chris Slinker, resigned instead of being fired, and is now running for the Assembly. The calls went to a political consultant working on local races, not on Darling's campaign.

Lautenschlager thinks someone should look into the 226 calls, and offered to help Bucher, who didn't seem to be doing it himself.

Bucher fired off a sharp reply telling the AG to “rest assured I will take care of him if the facts justify a criminal investigation.”

So far, Bucher's investigation has been to write a letter to the Journal Sentinel, asking for any information they have, since they wrote the stories about Slinker's phone calls.

To no one's surprise, except possibly Bucher's, the newspaper did not tell its reporter to give Bucher the information. (Surely his wife, a former Journal Sentinel reporter, didn't expect the paper would hand it over -- or did she?)

The newspaper's story was based on information obtained in an open records request from the State Senate chief clerk. All Bucher needs to do is to make a request for the same information and he will have everything the newspaper has.

If you want to read some of the cute lines in the back and forth between Lautenschlager, Bucher, and others, www.wispolitics.com has them all posted.

Less driving? How about fewer vehicles?

From: Press.Releases@WhiteHouse.Gov
Subject: POOL REPORT #2, 9/26/05
Date: September 26, 2005 7:36:57 PM EDT
Reply-To: Press.Releases@WhiteHouse.Gov


Pool Report #2, 9/26/05

Late on this day of self-restraint in fuel consumption for federal officials advised by the president to avert “non-essential travel,” the president departed from the White House South Lawn driveway by motorcade at 6:51 pm EDT on a rainy evening.

Here's the stated purpose: a “farewell dinner” for Gen. Richard Myers at the NW Washington, DC, home of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a stately brick house, with two main stories and three dormer windows in the slate roof on a third floor. We had no actual sighting of the president, however, and cannot vouch for his accompaniment.

This motorcade was marginally shorter in the SUV category - five - than the one that traveled to the Energy Department today, with six SUVs. But it was longer in vans, four tonight, compared with three this morning. Two limos, of course.
The motorcade obeyed some traffic signals along Connecticut Avenue, then blew through others north of the tunnel, then obeyed again, and turned onto a lovely residential street.

The 'cade delivered the president chez Rumsfeld at 7:01 pm, and the pool hunkered down for a hold in the shelter of the vans.

Mark Silva
White House Correspondent
Chicago Tribune

Hat tip: Wonkette

I was a little disappointed that Bush still hasn't produced the cardigan sweater.

All the news that fits and then some

I guess my news judgment is slipping.

Who would have thought it would be news that I contributed $100 to help an old friend who's facing a recall election for his position as a small town alderman? Or that I posted some items about his race on this blog?

Anyway, my support of Dave Olsen in today's recall election in Jefferson made the Journal Sentinel, although I can't imagine why. It's not exactly man bites dog.

It's not too late to help Dave with a contribution. Go to www.savingdave.org

An opponent for Sheriff Clarke?

Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, who wants oh-so-badly to be a Republican but knows he can't be elected as one, takes a hit from Joel McNally in a Capital Times op ed piece.

McNally reports on a prospective primary opponent for Clarke next year(assuming he runs as a Dem again):

Even worse news for Clarke is that former Municipal Judge Vince Bobot is considering running against Clarke as a real Democrat. Bobot, a former Milwaukee police officer, was the candidate who caused the most trouble for Clarke in his disastrous run for Milwaukee mayor.

Bobot was the whistle-blower who challenged Clarke's failure to initially submit a paltry 1,500 valid signatures on nomination papers. An extremely lenient City Election Commission allowed Clarke to correct his nomination papers after the deadline so he wouldn't be dropped from the ballot.

Not only does Bobot have experience in law enforcement and on the bench, but he's also a big, friendly likable guy. Clarke clearly is struggling with his orientation as a Republican trapped in the body of a Democrat.

Bobot and Clarke both ran poorly in the mayoral primary, in which Tom Barrett and Marvin Pratt emerged as the top two. But in a Democratic primary -- and with Republicans prevented from crossing over because of a GOP primary for governor -- Clarke could face a real test. Whether Bobot is the one to do it remains to be seen, but he is beginning to beat the bushes and test support, and so far no one else has emerged.

Mark Green, House GOP supporthiring based on religious views

"One of the questions I like asking people - and it's not are they born again - but I like asking people, just so I can get an idea of their understanding of their religious views is, if you die today and were standing before the judgment seat of God and God said, 'Why should I let you into heaven?' what would you say?"

If I'm going to have somebody working in my office, it's nice to know where, how they view their relation to God, whether entrance into heaven is something they earn or if it's a free gift."

-- State Sen. Tom Reynolds, explaining why he asks those questions in job interviews for prospective staff.

"This is not harmless chit-chat," the Journal Sentinel says in an editorial. "These are questions that have no place in the context of interviews or the workplace."

But if House Republicans have their way, those are the kinds of questions teachers may be asked when applying for jobs with Head Start.

Rep. Mark Green, who's running for governor, and Reynolds, the state senator, are not that far apart on the issue.

In a broad update of the Head Start program, the House voted Thursday to let preschool providers consider a person's faith when hiring workers — and still be eligible for federal grants, the AP reports.

The Republican-led House said the move protects the rights of religious groups, but Democrats blasted it as discriminatory. The debate over religion overshadowed the main parts of the bill, which had drawn bipartisan support.

The vote on the amendment allowing the religion-based hiring was even tighter. It passed 220-196, with support from 10 Democrats, none from Wisconsin. All four Wisconsin Republicans -- Mark Green, F. Jim Sensenbrenner, Paul Ryan, and Tom Petri -- voted for the amendment. One of the Dems, Ron Kind, was absent. Roll call.

"[M}ost of the debate Thursday was not about oversight. It was about religion and civil rights. The Republican plan would, for example, allow a Catholic church that provides Head Start services to employ only Catholic child-care workers, and to reject equally qualified workers of other religions.," the AP reported.

"This is about our children, and denying them exemplary services just because the organization happens to be a religious one is just cruel," said Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C.

Democrats and Republicans offered different interpretations of whether the Constitution, federal law and court rulings protected — or prevented — federally aided centers from hiring based on religion.

"Congress should not be in the business of supporting state-sponsored discrimination," said Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla.

The House bill, which had sailed through the Education Committee without controversy, would reauthorize the Head Start program through 2011. A similar measure in the Senate is pending.

The Senate bill does not include the religion-based hiring provision, although the language is likely to be offered as an amendment when the bill comes to a vote, as it was in the House.

Sheehan's not only a Commie, she's now a criminal, too

Cindy Sheehan arrested at White House (AP)

This should rile up the right-wing. The WashPost reports:

By Daniela Deane and Petula Dvorak
Washington Post Staff Writers

Cindy Sheehan, the grieving California mother of a soldier slain in Iraq, was arrested today while protesting the Iraq war outside the White House.

Sheehan, whose 24-year-old son Casey was killed last year, and several dozen other protesters staged a sit-in on the sidewalk on Pennsylvania Avenue after marching along the pedestrian walkway, the Associated Press reported. Police warned them three times that they had to move along before making arrests, the news agency said.

"The whole world is watching," protesters chanted as Sheehan was led to a police vehicle.

Sheehan and some 200 other protesters sat in circles on the sidewalk,apparently courting arrest. Hundreds more people rallied in Lafayette Park, across Pennsylvania Avenue.

Sheehan's arrest came after a massive antiwar demonstration Saturday in Washington which drew more than 100,000 people -- the largest such demonstration since the Iraq war began in spring 2003. A demonstration supporting the war drew roughly 500 people Sunday.

Hmmm, 100,000 to 500. Would you call the supporters of the war the Silent Minority?

Bryan Kennedy TV spot highlightsSensenbrenner vote on Katrina relief

Democrat Bryan Kennedy, who's challenging Rep. F. Us Sensenbrenner for Congress again next year, has unveiled a new television commercial which you can view here. It began airing today, is scheduled to run a week, and a fundraising campaign is underway to keep it on the air.

It apppears to be the first commercial by any '06 House candidate in the country.

It contrasts Sensenbrenner's vote to spend money on the Iraq war and for tsunami relief -- to send money overseas -- against his refusal to vote for an appropriation for relief for Hurricane Katrina victims here at home.

A female narrator says, “When President Bush needed billions of dollars to help rebuild Iraq…Jim Sensenbrenner said “yes”. When the Tsunami hit Asia…Jim Sensenbrenner voted again to send our money overseas. But when fellow Americans on the Gulf Coast needed help…Jim Sensenbrenner turned his back on them and voted “NO”.

Kennedy finishes the spot on-camera, saying "Saying no to our fellow Americans in need is just wrong."

Hat tip: My DD.

"Wrong but not heartless?"

The Journal Sentinel editorial board has chastized the Wisconsin Democratic Party for calling Rep. F. Jim Sensenbrenner "heartless" for his vote against aid to victims of Hurricane Katrina.

The Democrats did make that charge in a Sept. 9 news release and another on Sept. 14.

But I am happy to shoulder some of the blame. I think I'm the one who used the word first, in this Sept. 9 post. For good measure, I threw in uncaring and unfeeling, too. I said then, in part:

F. James Sensenbrenner, as a member of Congress, has the opportunity to do something in his official capacity. But he has refused.

I don't know what he has done personally to help victims. I hope he has been generous. He certainly has the means, if he chose, to write a million dollar check. Maybe he and Cheryl are preparing their extra rooms right now to take in some survivors. I hope so.

But it is his role in the House of Representatives that is at issue.

His title is Representative. But who does he represent?

Does his vote represent the people of his district?

Are we to believe that the people of Cedarburg, Whitefish Bay, Shorewood, River Hills, Wauwatosa, West Bend, Mequon, Brown Deer, and other communities in his district wanted him to vote no?

Do you think the people of his district want to turn their backs on the survivors of Katrina?

Of course they don't.

So who is it, exactly, that Representative Sensenbrenner is representing?

It's not the Republican Party. Only 11 Republicans voted against the bill. It's certainly not his leader, President Bush, who asked for the money.

I'm hard-pressed to explain. Any possible answer seems too callous to be true.

Is he representing the super-rich, who stand to benefit from proposed tax cuts that may never happen now because of the cost of Katrina? You'd like to think not, since he is one of the potential beneficiaries of the tax cut.

If and when he explains himself, I suspect we will learn that he is representing some misguided, esoteric principle that only he can understand.

I've seen no evidence since then to suggest that I was wrong. Maybe he's had some privqte chats with the editorial board, but Sensenbrenner has done nothing to demonstrate any compassion for the victims, and has continued to oppose any relief, even in the bankruptcy laws. He has complained about accountability, but proposed nothing to improve it, He just voted no. In a radio interview, asked if he was uncaring, Sensenbrenner said he cared about money being spent wisely.

If the Journal Sentinel has seen some evidence I missed, I'd be happy to hear about it. The newspaper attributes his votes to "philosophical inner voices speaking to Sensenbrenner." So now he's hearing voices?

The latest report is that Sensenbrenner has resigned, after two days, from a panel the Republicans named to "investigate" the response to Katrina. Why? Too busy, schedule conflicts, the usual. Or maybe he just didn't care.

GOP demagoguery on voter ID

A Journal Sentinel Sunday editorial goes on at some length, and in some detail, about why the Republican obsession with photo ID cards for voters won't solve any of the real problems with Wisconsin's election system.

But the headline pretty much says it all: "Demagoguery on voter ID"

Xoff Files from last Friday: Just like Abominable No Man, GOP has
one answer for everything: Photo ID.

Chicken sandwich with the gov doesn'tcompare to Walker's $19,000 in freebies

The Sykes-McBride Mutual Admiration Society has collaborated to raise questions about a cookout Gov. Jim Doyle held for the Capitol press corps last week. They ask: If some of the reporters got a free sandwich, isn't that the same as Milwaukee County Exec Scott Walker giving out free tickets to Milwaukee attractions?

Excellent.

I was afraid the Walker story was over, but Sykes, McBride, and their bosom buddy Rick Graber, the GOP chair, have revived the whole issue. So let's just refresh our collective memory.

Doyle is charged with giving a free meal at the executive residence to reporters who were too cheap to pay for it. Many of them did cough up a few bucks to cover it, but some ate for free, we're told.

(Some news organizations are squeaky clean and make sure their reporters always pay their own way. Others are a little looser. The ones who got a free meal promised the Doyle press office a favorable story this week about the topic of Doyle's choice. Kidding.) This is roughly equivalent to reporters visiting candidate hospitality rooms at state political conventions, where there might be a free piece of cheese, ice cream cone, sloppy joe or even a beer to be had.

Walker, on the other hand, gave away $19,000 worth of free tickets to Milwaukee County attractions. He did it in connection with a statewide Harley ride that stopped in every television market that covers Wisconsin, ostensibly as a way to promote tourism but also as a way to get his mug on television and increase his name recognition as he cranked up his campaign for governor.

Does anyone but me see a difference between a $7 or $10 meal and $19,000 worth of freebies, or am I just being partisan?

There's another, even bigger difference, however, between what Walker's statewide extravaganza and Doyle's little picnic.

Walker didn't limit his largesse to the media. He also gave freebies to others along the route.

I wrote about that in a post in July:

Let's talk for a minute about the freebies that Walker, a candidate for governor, gave to people who were not in the news media, during his now-famous Harley tour of Wisconsin media markets last month.

Walker's main defense has been that the whole trip was to promote Milwaukee tourism, not his campaign for governor, and that he was giving free tickets to the news media to help bring tourists to Milwaukee County. He also pointed out more than once that the county and state ethics boards and state election board had told him it was OK.

The ethics and elections boards signed off on the premise that the tickets were going to the media. But what about the non-media tickets? Who got them? Was that OK, too?

Let's start with who got free tickets, from documents released in an open records request:

Kutter Harley-Davidson, Janesville -- 8 NASCAR, 4 Summerfest, 6 State Fair, 2 US Bank golf championship.

Kegel's Harley-Davidson, Rockford -- 6 Art Museum, 4 Mexican Fiesta, 12 NASCAR, 5 Children's museum, 6 State Fair, 2 Irish Fest, 10 Indian Summer, 2 Pettit Ice Center.

Kathy Kopp, executive director, Platteville Chamber of Commerce -- 10 Indian Summer, 4 Pettit Ice Center, 4 Art Museum, 4 Zoo, 5 Children's Museum.

George Krueger, Platteville Area Industrial Development Corp. -- 4 NASCAR, 2 State Fair.

St. Paul Harley-Davidson -- 10 Indian Summer, 2 US Bank golf, 8 Parks, 5 Children's Museum, 4 NASCAR, 2 Mexican Fiesta.

GM Tomahawk Plant -- 4 NASCAR, 2 Summerfest, 2 US Bank golf, 2 Indian Summer.

OK, those are not media outlets, agreed? Some are listed as businesses. But people -- owners or employees, probably -- not businesses, ended up with the tickets.

Did any agency ever tell Walker it was OK to give freebies to people (if they live in Wisconsin, the term would be voters)?

Well, no, because he didn't ask them that question.

It's probably because he doesn't want to know the answer. The thing is, it is illegal as well as unethical for a candidate for office in Wisconsin to give anything of value (beyond an emery board or a football schedule) to a voter.

McBride makes another real stretch in comparing Doyle's party for the press with a reception the Tavern League held for legislators -- a $5 "all you can eat and drink until you puke, pass out or get arrested for drunken driving" affair that got the Tavern League in some hot water. A lobbying organization plying legislators with food and drink is a whole different ball game.

Newspaper, CRG weigh in as recall vote nears in Jefferson

Tuesday is election day in Jefferson, where Wal-Mart supporters have forced a vote on whether to recall Alderman Dave Olsen, who voted against an annexation to clear the way for a superstore.

As you might expect, there has been a lot of last-minute activity -- a newspaper endorsement, an "opinion" by Citizens for Responsible Government (now the CRG Network), and a fund-raising appeal on Olsen's behalf. As background, we'll also run the transcript of a Bill Moyers television program on the issue last year. Here we go:

OLSEN ENDORSED. The local newspaper, the Daily Jefferson County Union, endorsed Olsen in a Friday editorial. We are told it is the first time the paper has ever endorsed in a local race. The newspaper has opposed Wal-Mart, and paid a price when the city council moved its legal advertising to another newspaper in retaliation. (The Wal-Mart backers play hardball.) The editorial:

Keep Olsen on council

The City of Jefferson has one of those election rarities next Tuesday: a vote to recall Alderman Dave Olsen. Recall elections are a safety net under our system of government, typically reserved for situations in which an elected official has violated or otherwise lost the public trust.

Unfortunately, they are being used more and more in attempts to remove elected officials who have offended some special interest faction or another. Such is the case in Jefferson. Councilman Olsen is facing a recall not for malfeasance in office or some infraction, but for having the audacity to vote the way he thought best represented his constituents.

The Walworth County district attorney's office found the main charge in the recall petition against Olsen - an alleged violation of the state's open meetings law - to be without merit. Following an informal review, Wisconsin's attorney general also found no violation.

For people who understand the intent and letter of the open meetings law, these decisions weren't a surprise. The intent is that the decision-making process leading up to government actions occur in the full view of voters. Olsen's "crime," in this case, was to cede his question time to fellow Jefferson citizens at what was listed as an "informational meeting" with Wal-Mart officials. This was the only public participation that took place at the meeting and, as the Walworth County assistant D.A. pointed out, the public notice of the meeting did not limit who would be involved with the discussion.

The next night, Olsen cast one of three deciding votes against annexing land from the Town of Jefferson into the city - land that was proposed for the Supercenter, but not committed for by Wal-Mart. The property owners seeking the annexation of the Town of Jefferson property submitted the open meetings complaint.
Soon, a group led by two ardent pro-Wal-Mart advocates, called the "Coalition for the Best Jefferson," circulated a recall petition listing an unspecified open meetings violation, as well a catch-all line claiming that Olsen "failed to act in the best interest of Jefferson."

We often find ourselves on the opposite side of issues from Mr. Olsen, but his is one of the public's most accessible members of the council. He doesn't deserve having to face a whispering campaign concerning charges that died quickly when exposed to the light of day.

If this is really about Wal-Mart, which we believe it is, then the petitioners should have said so in the document. Of course, it is possible that then they might have had trouble gathering enough signatures if that had been stated up front. If there were other reasons for forcing the recall, they should have been specified so they could have been addressed publicly.

We believe the public tolerates differing opinions if they are honest ones. Those who try to punish or silence people whose opinions they disagree with often harm themselves more than their target. They spend so much time circling the wagons that they forget the direction the wagon trains was taking in the first place. Unfortunately, of late, some in Jefferson have forgotten these simple truths.
We recommend keeping Dave Olsen on the council next Tuesday. More importantly though, we'd like to see a full slate of candidates on the ballot - including Chris Havill - when Olsen's and other aldermanic seats are up for election next spring...just a few short months away.

Unintended consequences

As readers of this column know, we have thought all along that a Wal-Mart would not be a positive impact on the area's future. In other places, people also feel that way, with Stoughton being the most recent community to turn down annexing land for the mega-retailer.

Earlier this year, we felt the majority of the Jefferson Common Council punished us for our editorial opinion by moving its legal notices from the Daily Union to a newspaper with a much smaller Jefferson circulation and higher legal advertising rates. We think they though that move would cause us to cut back our coverage. Well, obviously, it didn't.

On top of that, since the council moved the legals, our Jefferson circulation - as of Sept. 21 - has gone up 153 copies a day.

The law of unintended consequences still holds.

---

Supporters of Olsen have launched an e-mail campaign and website with information and a link to make donations to his campaign. It's at SavingDave.

---

The Capital Times writes about the recall.

---

CRG network, the most pro-recall organization in the state, was asked for an opinion on the Olsen race. In guarded language that did not come right out and say it, the group suggested the Olsen recall is not well-founded. From the release:

CRG Network generally opines in favor of recalls regardless of the reason and would very likely have offered our assistance to the Petitioners had they requested it. Recalls are somewhat analogous to the "vote of confidence" procedure in parliamentary systems but with a significantly higher standard for initiation, especially in Wisconsin. They also are self-limiting in that they ultimately reflect the will of the people. Recalls for poor reasons rarely, if ever, succeed.

Nevertheless, we are troubled by the fact that the petition in this case bore a reason for recall that was ultimately proven to be untrue. State statutes do not require the reason to be true and many reasons for recall can never be proved or disproved. However, the integrity of the recall process requires that if the reason given is a simple matter of law that can be adjudicated in a reasonable amount of time, Petitioners should make every effort to wait for final adjudication before proceeding or select a different reason for recall. Given the flexibility of the statutes, this is not an unreasonable burden.

We also are concerned that a recall petition was offered primarily because citizens, regardless of their beliefs, were given a chance to speak. While we sympathize with citizens who felt deprived of the opportunity to offer opposing points of view, we question whether any of the citizen input had a measurable effect on the outcome of any votes. Although we do not condone such practices, at worst, we see this as a case of being politically outmaneuvered. Any Wal-Mart advocate on the Common Council could have also arranged to yield their time as well.

Regardless of the above, CRG Network still believes wide latitude should be given to all Petitioners and, despite serious reservations about its reasons and execution, would not suggest this recall be halted. Moreover, given that the recall election will proceed as scheduled, our opinion is already rendered moot. We would, however, caution all citizens of the City of Jefferson to carefully examine their motives before voting, especially if you signed the petition under the false impression that a violation of state law was committed. You have all been given another chance to speak. Do so in the most informed way possible.

---

Finally, in case you haven't heard enough about Jefferson and its politics, Bill Moyers asks whether class war is being fought in Jefferson:

"When you visit a place like Jefferson, Wisconsin you are on the front lines of America's class war. Working people are losing this war, as privileged elites arrange the rules to perpetuate their own advantage." -- Bill Moyers.

The struggle over Wal-Mart in Jefferson has been going on for more than a year. This transcript from the Oct. 22, 2004 "NOW" with Bill Moyers on PBS explained the split in the community. With a recall election scheduled for Tuesday, spurred in large part by Wal-Mart backers, it seems like a good time to revisit the story. Sylvia Chase is the reporter.

SYLVIA CHASE: . . . [T]here is another Arkansas traveler bearing down on them: Wal-Mart. Wisconsin has become saturated with them -- Jefferson has 10 stores little more than a 20-minute drive away. Yet, Wal-Mart intends to put down roots in this Jefferson cornfield -- a 150,000 square-foot supercenter, groceries included.

DAVE LORBECKI (at Wal-Mart meeting): My question is do we really need another super Wal-Mart center every 10 miles apart?

SYLVIA CHASE: A town meeting grew tense when opponents charged that the discount giant hurts local business.

SPEAKER 1: A company that all the care about is the profit the bottom dollar, making their own people rich.

SPEAKER 2: Why would we want an emblem of urban sprawl here in this small community.

SYLVIA CHASE: There are studies that conclude that two supermarkets will close for every new supercenter that opens.

That when Wal-Mart's open, some small communities have lost up to 47% of their retail trade after 10 years.

JOHN BISIO: Wal-Mart provides a very competitive wage and benefits package.

SYLVIA CHASE: John Bisio, a company executive from Arkansas dismissed criticisms of Wal-Mart as a campaign of disinformation. The company sent us other studies concluding that new Wal-Mart's do not hurt communities but add to local employment and payrolls.

JOHN BISIO: Nationally our average hourly wage is about ten dollars, it's $9.96 an hour.

FEMALE VOICE: There are no big industries banging on our door to come here. Nineteen and 20 dollar industrial jobs are not coming to Jefferson. Wal-Mart would like to be here.

SYLVIA CHASE: A lot of people in Jefferson are enthusiastic about taking advantage of those low Wal-Mart prices and cannot understand how Jefferson could turn its back on those new jobs.

JOYCE KIRKVOLD: We need jobs here very badly. And I know that they aren't fantastically paying jobs, but they are - there'll be over 300 jobs for the community.

SYLVIA CHASE: Joyce Kirkvold and her friends collected a couple thousand signatures on their pro-Wal-Mart petition. She says she cannot find what she needs on Main Street and that Jefferson mustn't stay locked in the past. At the same time, she doesn't believe Wal-Mart will hurt Main Street.

JOYCE KIRKVOLD: The people in small towns are very loyal. And they'll continue shopping at those merchants if the merchants offer them a fair value for their price.

PATTI LORBECKI: If you're at Wal-Mart and you're pickin' up whatever you need at Wal-Mart and you need a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk, I would stake my life on it that you're not gonna drive across town and come to our store to pick up those two things. And even losing sales like that is gonna be detrimental for us.

SYLVIA CHASE: It has been said that Wal-Mart makes its own weather. Well, when the weather turns stormy, little Main Street guys fear being blown away. Shop owners were reluctant to speak on the record, but there's hardly a place of business whose goods and services aren't duplicated at Wal-Mart. Remember Elmer Waldmann?

ELMER WALDMANN: You know, we just lost our Converse account because we couldn't afford to buy what they wanted us to buy. You know so it's a problem. Company that we bought stuff from say "Well if you don't buy $3,000 a month, you know we can't serve you, ya know." So they're going top just all the biggies.

SYLVIA CHASE: You mean biggies like --.

ELMER WALDMANN: Well I would guess like Wal-mart, Kmart, ShopCo, any of those I think. Kohl's.

SYLVIA CHASE: Elmer Waldmann is Jefferson's unofficial historian -- in the back room his old computer is brimming with photos and clippings from the 19th century up to 1940. But he greets the future with a sigh of resignation.

ELMER WALDMANN: I think the handwritings on the wall, you know I think our city wants Wal-Mart to come-- but I-- it's gonna hurt a lot of us, it's probably gonna do a lot of damage to us. I don't know if we'll be able to survive through it.

DAVE LORBECKI: It really scares me.

SYLVIA CHASE: Scares you?

DAVE LORBECKI: Because where is the future for our children? What are they gonna do? So you know I have my children who have jobs right now. But the thing is where are my grandchildren gonna have. You know that's what I'm looking at basically.

BOB FLEMING: Look at the prices of houses. Houses run, what, $100 to $150,000? How do you pay for that at nine dollars an hour?

SYLVIA CHASE: And are you worried about your future or your--

BOB FLEMING: Am I? No. Uh-uh

SYLVIA CHASE: How about your son?

BOB FLEMING: He's got a lot to worry about. And Jon's even got a lot more.

SYLVIA CHASE: Bob Fleming is talking about his grandson, Jonny, who is likely to be the first son to break with a family tradition. Instead of going to the factory, he wants to go to college.

JONNY FLEMING: Because I don't want some big company to come in, take over a little factory and start shoving us around like Tyson did -- that's something I don't wanna see happen to my future family.

MIKE FLEMING: And I told him, "Jon, there's nothing out there for jobs. You can look at the papers all you want. You gotta get an education. You gotta get it now while you have a chance."

SYLVIA CHASE: But Jonny is already working at one of America's booming, low wage industries -- fast food.

Three generations of Flemings. Three job pictures:

Grandpa Bob, $33 per hour

Son Mike, $13.10 per hour, wages frozen for four years.

Grandson, Jonny, $5.90 per hour.

Male college graduates are expected to earn as much as 50% more than men with just high school diplomas, but for the moment, Jonny needs to keep working at Burger King to pay off his car loan and save for college.

JONNY: I wanna at least just work a year. And then try to go to college, if I can.

SYLVIA CHASE: Jonny does not see Jefferson in his future. For others, it seems like the right place to stay, whatever happens.

SYLVIA CHASE: I guess these people are willing to sacrifice the grocery store, the hardware store, the jewelry store to have a Wal-Mart where they get good, cheap stuff.

PATTI LORBECKI: I guess my answer would be, "No." I'm-- I'm not willing to do that. And-- I-- I wish people could look into a crystal ball and maybe see ten years from now what-- what's gonna happen.


SYLVIA CHASE: Elmer Waldmann believes he already knows. He measures Jefferson's future in each swing of the wrecking ball.

ELMER WALDMANN: And they tore the Opera House down. And then they tore those buildings down and made a parking lot out of it. So you know there goes some more places. So-- you know it's just an erosion of businesses that there's not many left. When you're a historian and you remember those things it's-- quite a loss, you know

SYLVIA CHASE: And when you are a thirty-one years old and jobless, you are "living" history. Kurt Bubolz believes he's watching his hometown fade away.

KURT BUBOLZ: You know, you can make it on $8.50, maybe right now, you're barely scraping by. But every year, we see things go up. You know, the heat bills are rising, the gas bills are rising. You know, right now, we've got this huge gas crunch. You know, we've got gas going, you know, $2.00 a gallon, maybe even more. People in this town, you hear 'em talk about just how tight it's getting. And eventually, there's not gonna be enough there.


MOYERS: When you visit a place like Jefferson, Wisconsin you are on the front lines of America's class war. Working people are losing this war, as privileged elites arrange the rules to perpetuate their own advantage.

Take the Wal-Mart empire as a case in point: the research group Good Jobs first found that the world's largest retailer with nearly $9 billion in profits has received more than one billion dollars in tax breaks, free land, cash grants and other subsidies from state and local governments. Its low-wage employees often turn to food stamps, emergency rooms, and other publicly funded programs just to scrape by.

The study estimates the average payout to a Wal-Mart retail store at $2.8 million. Surely one reason those small businesses on Main Street in Jefferson can't compete with the colossus from Arkansas.

Folkbum, Folkbum, he's our man ...

Congratulations to Jay Bullock, whose blog,Folkbum's Rambles and Rants, won the semi-final round of the blog contest at MKEOnline, with the help of the Cheddarsphere's vast left-wing conspiracy.

All together now: Gimme an F ...

This week's contest includes two blogs from the left side of the Cheddarsphere (that's a Folkbum term): Watchdog Milwaukee and Sadie Says. Check them out.

Safire, Hillary hiss and make up

From ABC News' The Note, reporting on a roast of Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.):

Bill Safire and Hillary Clinton showed that they could play nice.

Back in 1996, Safire wrote in his New York Times column: "Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our First Lady — a woman of undoubted talents who was a role model for many in her generation — is a congenital liar."

Mike McCurry, the White House spokesman at the time, responded to Safire's column by saying: "The President, if he were not the President, would have delivered a more forceful response to that on the bridge of Mr. Safire's nose."

At last night's event, Safire recycled his joke that what he meant to write was that Hillary Clinton was a "congenial lawyer."

When the former First Lady took the podium, she said that what her husband really thought was: "what pathetic prose."

The delivery of the attack on Safire's cherished talent, as well as the accompanying icy glare, were (if not Emmy-award winning) certainly worthy of a statuette nomination. The crowd clearly scored the exchange a KO for Clinton, as apparently did Safire, who we're told went straight up to her after the event with everything but a white flag and conceded something to the effect of, "that was a really quick and impressive quip."

When direct deposit is not an option

As I read this, I could not help but think of the announcement by FEMA, two weeks ago, that it was not giving out any more debit cards but would offer people two options -- a check by mail (if they had an address to send it to) or -- better yet -- a direct bank deposit.

Here's a story about the bank many New Orleans evacuees relied on:

BATON ROUGE, La., Sept. 19 - In the period that some simply call "before," employees working at the Liberty Bank and Trust Company headquarters, a six-story glass box in eastern New Orleans, sat at brand-new workstations in a building they had occupied only this past spring.

At Liberty Bank, the largest minority-owned bank in New Orleans, looters broke into at least five of the branches in the city, including two that were not flooded during Hurricane Katrina.

Now, the head office for this $350 million bank is a cramped branch here, a homely brick building with a corner of its corrugated tin roof missing. Two bank employees, seated on beat-up borrowed chairs behind a pair of folding tables, serve as the loan department for the bank's 13 branches. The table beside them is the one-employee insurance department. Four tables pushed together in the room's middle accommodate a makeshift call center.

At least now Liberty has working phones. It was not until 10 days after the hurricane hit on Aug. 29 that BellSouth installed temporary phone lines so that customers, virtually all of them in desperate financial straits, could find out when the bank would lift the temporary $100-a-day limit on A.T.M. withdrawals that lasted through Sept. 8.

Liberty, one of the country's largest black-owned banks, has long been a gleaming New Orleans business success story, a homegrown institution in a predominantly African-American city. It has outposts here and in Jackson, Miss., but its branches are mainly concentrated in the northeastern quadrant of New Orleans, a vastly underserved part of the city, home to its black working and middle classes.

Liberty's presence, in other words, was greatest precisely in that part of New Orleans most devastated by the storm and the waters that roared through much of the city after the levees broke.

Quote, unquote

"The only thing that stands between us and the White House in 2008 is Bob Shrum."

--Former Commerce Secretary Bill Daley, at a roast for Rep. Rahm Emanuel.

Just like Abominable No Man, GOP has one answer for everything: Photo ID

Even if you watch television as little as I do, which is very little, you have probably been exposed multiple times to the credit card commercial in which "customer service" representative only has to know one answer: "No!"

Call him the Abominable No Man. He has an answer for any customer question or complaint. No, no, and no.

For some reason, that came to mind when I was reading the latest Wisconsin Republican Party press release about voter fraud.

Republicans, like the No Man, have one single answer for every problem with Wisconsin's electoral system.

People voting twice? Photo ID cards.

Absentee ballots counted after people died? Photo ID cards.

Felons voting? Photo ID cards.

Local clerks not purging voter lists? Photo ID cards.

Photo ID, photo ID, photo ID.

(The right wing seems to be trying to adopt Gen. Russel Honore's "stuck on stupid" line as their own; they liked it because he said it to reporters. But the GOP is stuck on stupid about this issue, among others. Either that or they think the voters are stuck on stupid and will buy their BS.)

Let's take the latest blatant untruth from the GOP, Thursday's release, entitled,
"Jury Trial Indicates Photo ID Would Have Prevented Man's Attempt to Vote Twice"

No, no, no. Photo ID would not have prevented it. Not at all. No.

From the release:

The trial of a man charged with voting twice in the Nov. ‘04 elections is strong evidence that a photo ID requirement would have prevented such behavior from occurring. The 25-year-old Milwaukee man testified that he filled two on-site voter registration cards.

The man actually lived at an address different than the one he said he entered one of his registration forms (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, September 22, 2005). According to the Assistant U.S. Attorney who is trying the case, the man’s two registration cards each show different numbers. Election officials at the trial said a number means a voter was given a ballot.

“Here is a case where photo ID would prevent someone from casting a ballot fraudulently,” said Rick Graber, chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin. “The man did not live at the address he said he did and a photo ID requirement would have stopped him from voting at that address.

The only way that would be true is if the Republicans are talking about sweeping changes that go far beyond the requirement to have a photo ID card to prove you are who you say you are.

The real Republican agenda isn't simply to require voters to show a photo ID. It is to require them to show a photo ID with their current address, which means getting your driver's license or ID changed every time you move. About 20% of people in the US move every year; some move more than once.

And it is no secret that most people don't change the address on their driver's license every time they move -- or if they do, they don't do it promptly.

The second part of the GOP agenda is to end voter registration at the polls -- even though 20% of the voters in the 2004 presidential election in Wisconsin -- 390,000 people -- used that system. Guess who's most likely to register at the polls? You guessed it; the same people who are less likely to have a current photo ID card -- minorities and the poor, who are part of the Democratic base.

This is a little complicated, but bear with me a minute if you haven't nodded off yet.

To understand what the GOP is trying to do, you have to understand how the current system works.

When we talk about election day registration, in many cases we are talking about people who are on the voting rolls, but who have moved since the last time they voted. Those people are required to fill out a registration card with their new information and their old address, and to show the poll worker some proof of their new address. New voters who are not on the rolls must show ID to show who they are and where they live.

I worked at the on-site registration table at a South Side polling place last November. Most of the people who were registering or changing their addresses had a driver's license. But in many cases that license had their previous address. My co-worker and I copied the number of the license onto the registration card, and then -- if the license had an old address -- asked for some other proof of their new address. They produced utility bills, leases, rent receipits, bank statements and a variety of other documents to show they lived where they were registering.

If the system had been working as it should, the defendant in this case would not have been able to vote twice at two different addresses, photo ID or not. What is needed is more and better-trained poll workers to endorce the current law.

But the facts don't matter to the Republicans, whose goal is to suppress turnout. Dem Party Chair Joe Wineke hit it on the head when he said, "Republicans are not interested in election reform; their real goal is to prevent as many people as possible from voting."

If the only way you can vote in Wisconsin is to show a photo ID with your current address, they certainly will have accomplished that.

Of course, even with that system in place there would be nothing to prevent someone who has moved from voting at his or her old address -- the one on the photo ID.

And there would be nothing to prevent felons from voting. No one is claiming they used false names. They simply voted when they should not have been allowed to, and no photo ID would have solved that problem, either.

So the "debate" continues.

Photo ID! Photo ID! Photo ID!

No. No. No.

---

POSTSCRIPT: The jury could not reach a verdict in the case the GOP used as its latest example, and a mistrial was declared. Reminds me of the news conference outside the home of a voter accused of double voting, who turned out to be innocent, one of a series of false charges of voter fraud.

Racine Repubs: Having it both ways

Racine Republicans got their undies in a bundle when State Rep. John Lehman, D-Racine, announced he was going to run against State Sen. Cathy Stepp, R-Racine, and said he wanted to bring more jobs to Racine, and criticized Stepp in his press release.

The party chair, Roseanne Kuemmel, said Stepp has been working hard to create jobs and everything is going great guns in Racine as a result.

A few days later, County Board Supervisor Van Wanggaard announced for Lehman's Assembly seat. His platform: “Racine County needs someone in Madison who will focus on doing everything possible to bring good paying jobs to our community."

What about Cathy Stepp?

GOP porkers won't back away from trough

The Washington Times, part of the vast right-wing conspiracy, reports:

The top House Democrat [Nancy Pelosi] said yesterday she would give up some specific transportation projects in her San Francisco district to help pay for Hurricane Katrina, but Majority Leader Tom DeLay said he doesn't think cutting projects in his district is a good idea.

"The highway bill is an important part of building our economy," Mr. DeLay said. "You cannot have a strong economy unless you have a strong infrastructure."

That's DeLay, rhymes with Pay to Play.

Meanwhile, Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) told a reporter to "Kiss my ear!" when asked whether he would return the $223 million he “earmarked” for a bridge so that residents of Ketchikan won’t have to pay $6 to ride a ferry to get to the airport.

Could you make a silk purse out of Don Young's ear?

Citizens Against Government Waste named Young and DeLay as C0-Porkers of the Month.

"We had nothing before the hurricane; now we got less than nothing"

This is two weeks old, but new to me and well worth reading.

There is a video link here.

Statement of Senator Barack Obama (right) on Hurricane Katrina Relief Efforts

I just got back from a trip to Houston with former Presidents Clinton and Bush. And as we wandered through the crowd, we heard in very intimate terms the heart-wrenching stories that all of us have witnessed from a distance over the past several days: mothers separated from babies, adults mourning the loss of elderly parents, descriptions of the heat and filth and fear of the Superdome and the Convention Center.

There was an overriding sense of relief, for the officials in Houston have done an outstanding job of creating a clean and stable place for these families in the short-term. But a conversation I had with one woman captured the realities that are settling into these families as they face the future.

She told me "We had nothing before the hurricane. Now we got less than nothing."

We had nothing before the hurricane. Now we got less than nothing.

In the coming weeks, as the images of the immediate crisis fade and this chamber becomes consumed with other matters, we will be hearing a lot about lessons learned and steps to be taken. I will be among those voices calling for action.

In the most immediate term, we will have to assure that the efforts at evacuating families from the affected states proceeds - that these Americans are fed, clothed, housed, and provided with the immediate care and medicine that they need. We're going to have to make sure that we cut through red tape. I can say from personal experience how frustrating, how unconscionable it is, that it has been so difficult to get medical supplies to those in need quickly enough. We should make certain that any impediments that may continue to exist in preventing relief efforts from moving rapidly are eliminated.

Once we stabilize the situation, this country will face an enormous challenge in providing stability for displaced families over the months and years that it will take to rebuild. Already, the state of Illinois has committed to accepting 10,000 families that are displaced. There are stories in Illinois as there are everywhere of churches, mosques, synagogues and individual families welcoming people with open arms and no strings attached. Indeed, if there's any bright light that has come out of this disaster, it's the degree to which ordinary Americans have responded with speed and determination even as their government has responded with unconscionable ineptitude.

Which brings me to the next point. Once the situation is stable, once families are settled - at least for the short term - once children are reunited with their parents and enrolled in schools and the wounds have healed, we're gonna have to do some hard thinking about how we could have failed our fellow citizens so badly, and how we will prevent such a failure from ever occurring again.

It is not politics to insist that we have an independent commission to examine these issues. Indeed, one of the heartening things about this crisis has been the degree to which the outrage has come from across the political spectrum; across races; across incomes. The degree to which the American people sense that we can and must do better, and a recognition that if we cannot cope with a crisis that has been predicted for decades - a crisis in which we're given four or five days notice - how can we ever hope to respond to a serious terrorist attack in a major American city in which there is no notice, and in which the death toll and panic and disruptions may be far greater?

Which brings me to my final point. There's been much attention in the press about the fact that those who were left behind in New Orleans were disproportionately poor and African American. I've said publicly that I do not subscribe to the notion that the painfully slow response of FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security was racially-based. The ineptitude was colorblind.

But what must be said is that whoever was in charge of planning and preparing for the worst case scenario appeared to assume that every American has the capacity to load up their family in an SUV, fill it up with $100 worth of gasoline, stick some bottled water in the trunk, and use a credit card to check in to a hotel on safe ground. I see no evidence of active malice, but I see a continuation of passive indifference on the part of our government towards the least of these.

And so I hope that out of this crisis we all begin to reflect - Democrat and Republican - on not only our individual responsibilities to ourselves and our families, but to our mutual responsibilities to our fellow Americans. I hope we realize that the people of New Orleans weren't just abandoned during the Hurricane. They were abandoned long ago - to murder and mayhem in their streets; to substandard schools; to dilapidated housing; to inadequate health care; to a pervasive sense of hopelessness.

That is the deeper shame of this past week - that it has taken a crisis like this one to awaken us to the great divide that continues to fester in our midst. That's what all Americans are truly ashamed about, and the fact that we're ashamed about it is a good sign. The fact that all of us - black, white, rich, poor, Republican, Democrat - don't like to see such a reflection of this country we love, tells me that the American people have better instincts and a broader heart than our current politics would indicate.

We had nothing before the Hurricane. Now we have even less.

I hope that we all take the time to ponder the truth of that message.

Americans concerned about wastefulspending -- in Iraq, not Gulf Coast

A new Associated Press-Ipsos poll shows Americans concerned about how much money the government is spending and whether it is being wasted -- but their concern is about Iraq, not Hurricane Katrina.

The AP reports:

Given a choice in the survey, 42 percent favored cutting spending on Iraq to pay for relief efforts on the Gulf Coast, and 29 percent wanted to delay or cancel Republican tax cuts. That's a whopping 71 percent backing options that Bush doesn't even have on the table.

Two-thirds said the president was spending too much in Iraq. Just as many were concerned the money was not being spent wisely.

Poll results here on Katrina and here on Iraq.

Reynolds says he's not a fruitcake,but he's still packaged like one

State Sen. Tom Reynolds (R-West Allis) has a unique role to play in the state legislature. He makes other extremists look mainstream.

Reynolds, whose foibles were laid out in a long Spivak and Bice column in Sunday's Journal Sentinel, turned to Republican radio to defend his honor, and Charlie Sykes was happy to oblige. It didn't turn out quite as Reynolds must have hoped, however, as the Spice Boys report in today's followup column.

Mil Mag plants big wet kiss on Green

Milwaukee Magazine's Kurt Chandler plants a big, sloppy kiss on Congressman and Would-Be Gov. Mark Green, in this Endgame article.

To read it, you'd think it is going to be a cakewalk for Green. It does not take into account the fact that campaigns are about more than personalities and resumes.

Green has a long record in the Assembly and in Congress. His votes on spending and deficits make Jim Doyle look like a tightwad, and there are any number of other issues, ranging from guns to Social Security to Iraq, that will be fair game in 2006 -- not to mention his close ties to scandal-plagues Tom DeLay. Some are state issues, some are not, but they all tell voters something about how Green thinks and what he stands for.

Campaigns are about drawing distinctions, and there are plenty to draw between Green and Doyle, assuming Green wins the GOP primary (no sure thing, either, despite the Scott Walker PR missteps listed in the article.)

My money's on Doyle. But I'm not giving any point spread. It'll be a horse race, and a dogfight, too, and stacks up as one of the closest races in the country. But Doyle's been there before, several times, and has won every time. Green's in for a whole new experience in a statdewide race, and hitting county fairs this summer doesn't bear any resemblance to the campaign world he'll be living in a year from now. He's a formidable candidate, but as Al Jolson said, he ain't seen nothin' yet.

Hot time in Jefferson tonight

A forum in Jefferson tonight, featuring Alderman Dave Olsen, who faces a recall for voting against a Wal-Mart site annexation, and his opponent. The election is Tuesday. Forum details. Earlier post.

One nation under Wal-Mart

If Wal-Mart were a nation, it would be one of the world's top 20 economies. There are now nearly 5,000 stores worldwide, over 3,500 in the U.S. A new Wal-Mart SuperCenter opens every 38 hours; with yearly sales of $288 billion, Wal-Mart employs one of every 115 workers in America. Wal-Mart has an enormous influence on all facets of business -- manufacturing, trade, communications, transportation, design, you name it. But as journalist John Dicker describes in his first book, The United States of Wal-Mart (Jeremy P. Tarcher), the backlash -- from citizens, workers, unions and governments -- has begun.

Here's an AlterNet interview with Dicker.

Quote, unquote

"Bush to address the U.N., says we must be steadfast in battling terrorism. I'm sure all the U.N. people fell asleep. They don't really care about anything over there at all. I just wish Katrina had only hit the United Nations building, nothing else, just had flooded them out. And I wouldn't have rescued them."

--Bill O'Reilly on The Radio Factor.

Wisconsin Right-to-LIe Act

What supporters of women's choice call the "Right to Lie" bill is one of three bills to limit women's reproductive rights that are all up for a public hearing today.

It has a nice ring to it. And it is descriptive of what the bill, SB-71, does: It allows health care providers to lie without having to worry about being penalized.

The Right to Lie Bill protects physicians who negligently withhold crucial medical information from pregnant women and their families, if the physician believes the woman might use the information to choose an abortion. This bill eliminates legal remedies that exist for patients under Wisconsin law.

Currently, if your doctor knows that your unborn child will have a disability but fails to tell you about it while abortion is still an option, the physician can be held responsible for medical expenses and costs related to the child's care. The Right to Lie bill would take away any obligation for the doctor to tell you anything, and absolve him/her of any liability after the child is born disabled.

The other two bills -- the anti-choice people hope all will pass in a trifecta later this month in the Senate -- are known by pro-choicers as the Family Planning Ban and the Teen Endangerment Bill.

The Family Planning Ban -- some prefer "Gag" Rule -- is SB 72, which would eliminate state funding for at least 53 family planning facilities in Wisconsin, including public health departments, and could impact as many as 127 facilities that provide family planning services. Under this bill, mentioning the word abortion in a counseling setting would disqualify family planning programs from receiving state funds. Those clinics serve more than 93,000 women annually by providing access to birth control, cancer screens and sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment. Publicly funded family planning clinics often are the only health care available to these patients, including birth control services and supplies. This bill effectively bans birth control for many low-income women.

Last but not least, the Teen Endangerment Bill (SB 97) threatens a minor’s life and health by restricting access to abortion by the most vulnerable teens -- such as those who are abused, victims of incest or in foster care. The bill makes parental consent difficult or impossible for some parents by requiring notarized consent and a government-issued identification (sound familiar?). This bill does nothing to try to reduce the incidence of teen pregnancy. Rather, the Teen Endangerment Bill serves to isolate the pregnant teen from seeking assistance from trusted adults such as a relative, clergy member or psychologist.

It is probably futile to e-mail committee members, (There are probably no undecideds), but here is the list. More importantly, contact your own legislators before these bills hit the Senate floor, probably next week.

Senator Zien, chairperson http://www.legis.state.wi.us/senate/sen23/sen23.html
Senator Risser http://www.legis.state.wi.us/senate/sen26/sen26.html
Senator Roessler http://www.legis.state.wi.us/senate/sen18/sen18.html
Senator Grothman http://www.legis.state.wi.us/senate/sen20/sen20.html
Senator Taylor http://www.legis.state.wi.us/senate/sen04/sen04.html

And now for something totally unreliable: Katrina drives Bush back to the bottle

From National Enquirer online. I've always found them to be about as reliable as Drudge.(Remember the report on John Kerry's affair with an intern?) Enjoy, and remember, you read it here second.

Personally, I don't believe it. Jim Beam? Come on! Otherwise, it seems right on, don't you think?

BUSH'S BOOZE CRISIS

By JENNIFER LUCE and DON GENTILE

Faced with the biggest crisis of his political life, President Bush has hit the bottle again, The National Enquirer can reveal.

Bush, who said he quit drinking the morning after his 40th birthday, has started boozing amid the Katrina catastrophe.

Family sources have told how the 59-year-old president was caught by First Lady Laura downing a shot of booze at their family ranch in Crawford, Texas, when he learned of the hurricane disaster.

His worried wife yelled at him: "Stop, George."

Following the shocking incident, disclosed here for the first time, Laura privately warned her husband against "falling off the wagon" and vowed to travel with him more often so that she can keep an eye on Dubya, the sources add.

"When the levees broke in New Orleans, it apparently made him reach for a shot," said one insider. "He poured himself a Texas-sized shot of straight whiskey and tossed it back. The First Lady was shocked and shouted: "Stop George!"

"Laura gave him an ultimatum before, 'It's Jim Beam or me.' She doesn't want to replay that nightmare — especially now when it's such tough going for her husband."

Bush is under the worst pressure of his two terms in office and his popularity is near an all-time low. The handling of the Katrina crisis and troop losses in Iraq have fueled public discontent and pushed Bush back to drink.

A Washington source said: "The sad fact is that he has been sneaking drinks for weeks now. Laura may have only just caught him — but the word is his drinking has been going on for a while in the capital. He's been in a pressure cooker for months.

"The war in Iraq, the loss of American lives, has deeply affected him. He takes every soldier's life personally. It has left him emotionally drained.

The result is he's taking drinks here and there, likely in private, to cope. "And now with the worst domestic crisis in his administration over Katrina, you pray his drinking doesn't go out of control."

Another source said: "I'm only surprised to hear that he hadn't taken a shot sooner. Before Katrina, he was at his wit's end. I've known him for years. He's been a good ol' Texas boy forever. George had a drinking problem for years that most professionals would say needed therapy. He doesn't believe in it [therapy], he never got it. He drank his way through his youth, through college and well into his thirties. Everyone's drinking around him."

Another source said: "A family member told me they fear George is 'falling apart.' The First Lady has been assigned the job of gatekeeper."...

Dr. Justin Frank, a Washington D.C. psychiatrist and author of Bush On The Couch: Inside The Mind Of The President, told The National Enquirer: "I do think that Bush is drinking again. Alcoholics who are not in any program, like the President, have a hard time when stress gets to be great.

"I think it's a concern that Bush disappears during times of stress. He spends so much time on his ranch. It's very frightening."

Sensebrenner named to committeeto review response to Katrina

It's hard to know whether to laugh or cry.

From the Miami Herald:

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner was named Wednesday to a congressional committee to review the local, state and federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., was one of just 11 House members to vote against the $51.8 billion emergency relief bill last week.

Republicans formed the committee in the face of Democratic demands that an independent commission like the 9/11 Commission, which reviewed the 2001
terrorist attacks, be created instead.

The committee will be chaired by Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va.

This, of course, is the phony "bipartisan" commission in which Republicans have the majority and are the only ones with subpoena powers. Democrats are boycotting it and holding out for an independent body to review what happened, rather than an administration-run whitewash.

Earlier post: Sensenbrenner consistently heartless.

-- FromWorking for Change. (Click on cartoon to enlarge.)

Bush: Not time for blame game, but let's blame environmentalists

The President keeps saying it's not the time to play the blame game (Jon Stewart says the people who don't want to play are usually to blame), but the feds are getting their ducks in a row, so to speak.

A Jackson, Mississippi newspaper reports that the US Dept. of Justice is looking for "evidence" to pin the blame for New Orleans flooding on environmental groups.

The Clarion-Ledger has obtained a copy of an internal e-mail the U.S. Department of Justice sent out this week to various U.S. attorneys' offices: "Has your district defended any cases on behalf of the (U.S.) Army Corps of Engineers against claims brought by environmental groups seeking to block or otherwise impede the Corps work on the levees protecting New Orleans? If so, please describe the case and the outcome of the litigation."

The e-mail confirms what the Sierra Club had already reported in its online newsletter -- The Bush administration is trying to scapegoat enviros:

The Bush administration thought it could make up for its embarrassing performance in emergency management with a tried-and-true exercise in image management. In Karl Rove's playbook, that meant find someone to "Swift Boat," as New York Times columnist Frank Rich would say.

By September 8, Rove's smear machine was in full swing. The National Review online ran an article by John Berlau, a journalism fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), the well known think tank, "dedicated to advancing the principles of free enterprise and limited government." The article suggested that environmentalists were responsible for the terrible flooding that New Orleans endured because they had opposed a major levee project along the Mississippi River in 1996. That story was immediately echoed by Fox News and right wing commentators and bloggers from coast to coast.

Missing from these reports was the fact that the project was 100 miles North of New Orleans and would have offered no defense to Katrina. That's not all: conservation groups never opposed the levees themselves; just the fact that thousands of acres of wetlands were going to be mined for construction material. And it wasn't just conservation groups who objected; even the Louisiana Legislature voiced concerns. The case, by the way, was settled one year later, but the Corps never had the funding to move ahead on the project.

Madison smoking ban survives

The Capital Times reports:

By Lee Sensenbrenner

The Madison City Council decided early today to keep the ban on smoking in taverns intact and not go to a referendum on the issue.

The attempt to repeal the ban failed by a narrow margin - 9 for repeal to 10 against it. The Council rejected the plan to take the issue to the voters in a spring referendum, with only 5 votes for a referendum and 14 against.

A proposal to allow bars temporary hardship exemptions if they can prove that the ban has significantly hurt their business also was not approved, or acted upon, during the overnight meeting.

Speaker after speaker took the podium, four minutes at a time, alternately telling those dozing around them in the Council chambers that it was about paying bills, or it was about health, or it was about being an American and making your own choices.

For Madison decision makers, the issue appears finally to be over. For those fighting the ban, the next step they pledged was to push for less restrictive statewide smoking rules, although Gov. Jim Doyle has said he is resistant to the idea.

The pro-smokers could have waited until some people on the other side were out in the hall or on a bathroom break and then held the vote, but apparently they haven't adopted the methods used down the street in the Capitol, where Assembly Republicans closed the roll on a veto before Democrat Pedro Colon could cast the deciding vote.

On another note: Austin, Texas -- "Live Music Capital of the World" -- has had a smoking ban in effect since Sept. 1, and although it was contentious there, too, it is an amazing experience to enjoy some of that live music in a smoke-free environment. Austin's weather is more conducive than Madison's to year-round outdoor smoking, 'tis true. But the cities have a lot in common otherwise, as state capitals with major universities and a disproportionate number of young smokers. As Madison and Austin go, so goes the nation. Or so goes East Lansing? Berkeley? Whatever.

An endorsement: Vote Folkbum

If nominated, I will not run.

If elected, I will not serve.

Or something like that.

The Xoff Files were "blog of the week" in a MKE online contest awhile back, and now it's time for the semi-finals.

I'm throwing my support, however, to another liberal blogger who has earned the honor. The blog is called Folkbum's Rambles and Rants, and it's written by Jay Bullock, a Milwaukee high school teacher. He's one of the few members of the Wisconsin blogger community -- he calls it the Cheddarsphere -- that I've actually met in person. He looks taller than he does on the blog.

Jay's been at blogging for more than two years (I don't even have six months in yet), and , unlike me, works it around a real job. He's both insightful and funny (maybe not always at the same time), and has good musical taste.

What more do you need to know? You can check out his blog here, or just take my word for it and vote here before midnight on Wednesday, Sept. 21. Thanks.

Gard helps Crooks in Madison, hurts himself in Green Bay

Assembly Speaker John Gard has lashed out at Supreme Court Justice Patrick Crooks, calling him an activist judge. For a conservative, that is worse than calling someone a poophead or even a double booger.

Gard told the Capital Times, for some reason, that he's unhappy with Crooks , who sided with the court's three liberals - Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson and justices Ann Walsh Bradley and Louis Butler - to create a 4-3 majority in two recent cases.

"They are the poster child for an activist, liberal court," Gard said of the four.

Well, that's just what Capital Times readers are looking for, so Gard has helped Crooks to sew up the far left in Madison.

Meanwhile, you have to wonder how that plays in Green Bay, which is Crooks' hometown, and where he was elected and reelected as a circuit judge for 20 years, before joining the Supreme Court.

Green Bay and Brown County are also part of the Congressional district Gard hopes to represent; he's a candidate in the GOP primary for the seat being vacated by Mark Green next year.

Was he trying to placate Mark Belling, who wrote recently that Gard had sold out the conservatives? Or was he just shooting off his mouth? Neither seems particularly smart.

What's wrong with Repubs on hate crimes?

Eye on Wisconsin asks whether Wisconsin's Republican members of the House of Representatives are homophobic, since they all voted against an amendment to expand the federal hate crimes law to include sexual orientation.

The amendment passed with 30 Republicans joining Democrats to form a majority, but all four Wisconsin Republicans -- Mark Green, F. Gays Sensenbrenner, Tom Petri, and Paul Ryan -- voted no. All four Wisconsin Dems -- Tammy Baldwin, Gwen Moore, Ron Kind and Dave Obey -- voted for the amendment.

The thing is, the amendment wasn't just about gays. It also added disabilities and gender to the list of hate crimes. So if you target someone because he's disabled, or because she's a woman, you're subject to the extra penalties, too. AP story.

So it's not fair to say the Rs are homophobic. They just don't like anybody very much.

Enlisting in the porn war:"I know it when I see it"

Recruits Sought for Porn Squad

By Barton Gellman
Washington Post Staff Writer

The FBI is joining the Bush administration's War on Porn. And it's looking for a few good agents.

Early last month, the bureau's Washington Field Office began recruiting for a new anti-obscenity squad. Attached to the job posting was a July 29 Electronic Communication from FBI headquarters to all 56 field offices, describing the initiative as "one of the top priorities" of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and, by extension, of "the Director." That would be FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III.

Mischievous commentary began propagating around the water coolers at 601 Fourth St. NW and its satellites, where the FBI's second-largest field office concentrates on national security, high-technology crimes and public corruption.

The new squad will divert eight agents, a supervisor and assorted support staff to gather evidence against "manufacturers and purveyors" of pornography -- not the kind exploiting children, but the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults.

"I guess this means we've won the war on terror," said one exasperated FBI agent, speaking on the condition of anonymity because poking fun at headquarters is not regarded as career-enhancing. "We must not need any more resources for espionage."

Among friends and trusted colleagues, an experienced national security analyst said, "it's a running joke for us."

A few of the printable samples:

"Things I Don't Want On My Résumé, Volume Four."

"I already gave at home."

"Honestly, most of the guys would have to recuse themselves."

The full story.

Taking away the right to vote

While Wisconsin Republicans gleefully point out that Jimmy Carter agreed to support a recommendation for photo IDs for voters -- one of 87 recommendations, Sadie points out -- the New York Times explains what's wrong with that proposal.

It is simply this: It makes it more difficult for people to vote, especially the poor, minorities, and elderly.

Whether the ID is free or not is irrelevant, although the $20 fee in Georgia seems awfully close to a poll tax. What will be required to obtain that free ID? A birth certificate? Social Security card? Mail to your current address? All of the above? Will you need a new ID every time you move? Will it be easier to get an ID card than it is to get a driver's license? (Ever stand in line at the Milwaukee DOT office on 6th Street?)

The whole point is that the photo ID requirement will guarantee that many people who otherwise would exercise their right -- let me say that again, their right -- to vote would not do so. And that, of course, is the whole idea -- to discourage the poor and minorities in urban areas (the Democratic base, in other words) from exercising that right.

Jimmy Carter was taken to the cleaners on this one. That's no reason we should follow him.

---

NY Times Editorial

Denying Access to the Ballot

It has been clear since 2000 that the election system is in serious need of reform. But the commission led by James Baker III and former President Jimmy Carter has come up with a plan that is worse than no reform at all. Its good ideas are outweighed by one very bad idea: a voter identification requirement that would prevent large numbers of poor, black and elderly people from voting.

The commission makes helpful recommendations. It favors requiring electronic voting machines to produce paper records, and opposes partisan activity by state election officials. It fails to address other problems, like not counting provisional ballots cast at the wrong
precincts.

But the bombshell recommendation is for the states to require voters to have drivers' licenses or a government-issued photo ID. That would not be a great burden for people who have drivers' licenses, but it would be for those who don't, and they are disproportionately poor, elderly or members of minorities. These voters would have to get special photo ID's and keep them updated. If they didn't have the ID's, their right to vote would be taken away.

The commission recommends that the cards be free. But election administration is notoriously underfinanced, and it is not hard to imagine that states would charge for them. Georgia is already charging $20 and more for each of its state voter cards.

There is very little evidence of voters' claiming to be people they are not, and the commission admits that its members are divided about how big a problem it is. But the report goes on to say that even if there is just a small amount of fraud, it should be stopped. True, but if the solution risks disenfranchising hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of voters, it is a very bad reform.

There are more reasonable approaches. The states could require uniform ID's, but allow each voter without one to sign an affidavit attesting to his or her identity, a system some states use now. It is little wonder that a dissent came from the former Democratic leader in the Senate, Tom Daschle, a commission member. He said that "for some, the commission's ID proposal constitutes nothing short of a modern-day poll tax."

The disappointing report made public yesterday was not a complete surprise. There have been red flags waving around the commission for some time;Mr. Baker is remembered by many for his fierce fight to stop the counting of votes in Florida in 2000. There have also been complaints about the commission's process. Spencer Overton, a George Washington University law professor and commission member, complains that he was told he had to limit a dissent on complicated voting issues to just 250 words.

The purpose of election reform should not be making it harder to vote. We all have a duty to make our election system as good as it can be - and not to disenfranchise people in the name of reform.

Quote, unquote

"Brownie is to Katrina what Paul Bremer is to peace in Iraq, what George Tenet is to slam-dunk intelligence, what Paul Wolfowitz is to parades paved with flowers in Baghdad, what Dick Cheney is to visionary energy policy, what Donald Rumsfeld is to basic war planning, what Tom DeLay is to ethics and what George Bush is to 'Mission Accomplished' and 'Wanted Dead or Alive,'"

-- Sen. John Kerry

Wisconsin candidate gets national attention

Bryan Kennedy, making his second run for F. Us Sensenbrenner's Congressional seat, has made the finals of a Democracy for America contest to decide who will get group's first endorsement for 2006.

A win would elevate Kennedy's national profile among movers and shakers and help him put some money in his campaign coffers. It is not a targeted race for the party because it is not a swing district statistically, but rather a safe Republican district. But Sensenbrenner has gotten a lot more negative attention this year for his positions and his spoiled-brat behavior, giving rise to hopes of an upset.

Democracy for America has details on its website. Go there to vote for Kennedy. And visit www.blogforamerica.com to learn more about Kennedy and the other nine finalists. (He is currently in seventh place in the vote, and there are some candidates from big states on the list, so he needs all of the help he can get.)

Time to recall Grothman?

Noting a Journal Sentinel blog item that says the so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights is still on hold in the State Senate, Eye On Wisconsin asks:

It is almost the year anniversary of Glenn Grothman’s overthrow of former state senator and majority leader Mary Panzer (R-West Bend). Now pardon me for meddling in the affairs of the right wing, but I’m just trying to figure something out. Didn’t Grothman successfully oust Panzer because she took too long in bringing TABOR (so called “Taxpayer Bill of Rights”) up for a vote? Then after he won, he was made the point man for the TABOR effort right? Well, has TABOR come up for a vote in the last year? No. So can we assume that the right wing will now start a recall of Grothman?

Dog bites man, FEMA wastes money

You'll be shocked to hear this, but FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency, also known as "Fix Everything My Ass"), which has done such an efficient job with Hurricane Katrina, has wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on past disasters.

The Journal Sentinel has an abbreviated version of an in-dept series done by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. You can read the whole series here.

It was interesting last week to hear federal officials and their right-wing network raise questions about whether Katrina aid would be siphoned off by corrupt state and local officials. How many stories did you hear about corruption in Louisiana, as conservatives tried to build a case for opposing aid?

The fact is that most of the fraud, waste and abuse is likely to come from the federal government itself, either by FEMA or by no-bid, cost-plus contracts with Halliburton, the Bush administration's favorite contractor.

The solution is not to oppose aid to a million hurricane victims; it is to put some systems in place to make sure FEMA and Halliburton don't rip off the taxpayers. So far, we've heard no proposals on how to do that, even from Rep. F. The Victims Sensenbrenner, who voted no on Katrina aid because of "lack of accountability," but has offered no solution.

There has to be a way to help victims without pouring money down the toilet. So far, the silence is deafening.

Sykes, Green to discuss non-issue

Republican radio talk show host Charlie Sykes will have Rep. Mark Green, a candidate for governor, on his show Tuesday morning.

I was hoping he would ask Green to talk about his position on Social Security changes, since he has refused to do that for months now, despite repeated attempts to smoke him out.

Now, with the proposal deader than the proverbial doornail, maybe Green would like to say he's against any risky changes -- and that he was against them all along. It wouldn't be true, but Sykes would never challenge him, and then he'd be on the record. (Even the chair of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee is jumping ship on Social Security.)

But, alas, Sykes and Green will talk about the issue that is uppermost in the mind of the voters, judging from all of the airtime and ink it gets in Milwaukee -- voter ID.

Actually, here's what voters say when you ask them about national priorities. Sykes and Green apparently plan to talk about none of them:

---

FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll. Sept. 13-14, 2005. N=900 registered voters nationwide. MoE ± 3.

"Which one of the following do you think should be the top domestic priority for President Bush right now: [see below]?" Items rotated
%
Hurricane relief 27
The economy 17
Homeland security 14
Gas prices 10
Health care 9
Social Security 8
Education 5
Something else (vol.) 5
Unsure 4

Big boxes unwelcome in Verona

As Wal-Mart continues to march across the state, with mixed results from local governments, Verona's council has rejected an ordinance that sought to prepare for how to handle "big box" developments that might come its way.

The message, on a 7-1 vote, seems to be that Verona officials don't want an ordinance because they don't want any big box stores.

Wal-Mart was recently turned down in Jefferson and Stoughton, and continues to make the rounds. Verona is right at the 10,000 population mark, which could make it ripe for new big boxes sometime soon.

Paul Snyder at the Daily Reporter has the whole story on Verona.

There's also a hot and persistent rumor that River Falls is in Wal-Mart's sights, RiverTowns reports.

Scott Walker's miscalculation on concealed weapons issue

Milwaukee County Exec Scott Walker, the governor wannabe, writes on his campaign blog about the proposal to allow people to carry concealed weapons in Wisconsin.

He conveniently forgets the "concealed" part, and prefers to call it the Personal Protection Act.

Walker apparently thinks it's a great issue to run for governor on. He says:

Early in 2004, the opponent that Jim Doyle handpicked to run against me in our re-election actually ran TV ads with the barrel of a gun facing the screen to attack me for supporting a right to carry in this state. With your help, we carried 58% of the vote in a county that traditionally votes for Democrats, so that issue does not seem to decide elections against supporters of the right to carry.

First of all, Walker continues to misstate Gov. Doyle's involvement in David Riemer's campaign for county exec. Riemer told Doyle what he was doing the night before he told the Journal Sentinel. Doyle was more than a little surprised. He hardly "hand-picked" Riemer.

Riemer asked Walker repeatedly during last year's campaign for his position on concealed carry, since the majority of people in Milwaukee County -- including law enforcement officials and even Sheriff David Clarke -- oppose putting more guns on the streets.

Walker avoided answering as long as he could, then finally said he supported concealed carry -- but insisted it was not a county issue and should not be a factor in the county executive's race.

To hear him tell it now, you would think he campaigned on the issue. It's true that he was reelected, and that Riemer tried to make concealed carry an issue, but if the conclusion Walker draws is that people in Milwaukee don't care about the issue, he is dead wrong. And it will be an issue in a race for governor.

According to Walker, "only" 15% of the population of Minnesota has obtained permits to carry concealed weapons. In Wisconsin, with 5.4-million people, "only" 810,000 people would be able to carry guns to Summerfest, Mayfair mall, and the church of their choice.

Fortunately for Doyle, Walker and Mark Green both think the way to make Wisconsin safer is to put more guns on the street. Here's hoping that is a major plank in both of their platforms, because it's one that will backfire.

John Stocks: Home from rescue mission

John Stocks reports on his mission of mercy to help family and friends who are survivors of Katrina:

JACKSON-Thursday night

We gathered in Lois' room to open up packages that are arriving from all over the country. The children wait restlessly in anticipation of the contents.

The parents and grandparents hope for clothes to supplement the three day supply they brought from New Orleans. The children wish for toys, dolls, books and crayons. It is all a bit overwhelming because they know their stay at the Comfort Inn will be ending soon.

Tomorrow Stacy's three girls will leave with their father for Tennessee. Another temporary home, another family and a new school to navigate in a strange community.

The grandmothers are worn out, anxious and troubled about the family splitting up. They dread the girls' departure tomorrow. It weighs heavy on their spirit.

After showing the children how to make and throw paper airplanes in the motel lobby, the girls attempt to braid my hair again.

Stacy, Jerald, Courtney and I gather up the four children to take them out to dinner and give Lois and Elouise some time to rest.

Off to Shoney's for the dinner buffet of ribs and chicken. The waitress is compassionate and very attentive. She inquired right away if we were in Jackson because of the hurricane.

One of the girls leans over and whispers in my ear that she is scared to leave her mother tomorrow. I do my best to hold back the tears and reassure her that it will be alright. I yearn deep inside for a different outcome.

Goodbye 'Uncle Johno'

Back to motel to say my goodbyes. The children give me long hugs. I toss Vichaun over the bed and tuck him in. They ask 'When will we see you again Uncle Johno?' Tears streaming down my face, not knowing for sure, I tell them 'soon'.

FRIDAY-Diamonds on my windshield...I'm driving a steel train in the rain.

Gas up the night before. Up and out before the sun. Storm clouds gather to the north as the sun rises. Large drops of rain hit the windshield intermittently. I am reminded of a verse in a Tom Waits' song I heard many years ago, 'Diamonds on my windshield, I'm driving a steel train in the rain." This truck and trailer feel like a steel train. The torrents follow.

Clouds break over Tennessee. With lots of time inside my mind, I am haunted by the uncertainties the Ewell adults and children face. The split up has begun across three states. If you add in Debbie Ann and Henrietta, it's four states. I can hardly bear it.

Safe at Anchor

Sixteen hours of straight driving through Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois and Wisconsin, only stopping for gas and repairs to the lights on the trailer. I call family, friends and colleagues to stay awake. I finally pull into my driveway a little after 10 pm. I am physically and emotionally spent. As I think about my journey and the challenges ahead for my family, another verse captures my tired imagination.

' Riding out the storm like a ship safe at anchor
Waiting out the long voyage around the cape of hope will take her....'

Kate Wolf, folk singer/songwriter

---

How you can help.

A tragedy, but not as described on TV

From Wonkette, which says it well:

Grief-Striken Man Gives Inaccurate Account;

Please Attribute to Liberal Bias

MSNBC reports that the emotional testimony of St. Bernard Parish president Aaron Broussard on "Meet the Press" two weeks ago -- in which he recounted a stranded mother's horrific daily pleas for help that ended in death -- "conflicts" with the timeline of known events. No one is accusing Broussard of lying exactly -- he was "confused," there was "a misunderstanding," that kind of thing. We'd like to believe the best about him, ourselves. Still, the central point of his story has been toppled. The lagging federal response didn't kill Thomas Rodrigue's mother, though someone did: The owners of the nursing home where she drowned are being charged with her death, and the deaths of over 30 other residents. For some on the left, not being able to blame the Bush administration for this woman's death will be a disappointment. For some on the right, the undercutting of Broussard's account will be brandished as evidence of media bias and vindication of local authorities' culpability. We'd like to ask the theater critics to sit down, because the coroners are still coming through.

MSNBC's account, titled, "An emotional moment and a misunderstanding."

Good Grief! Bush is Lucy!

By BOB HERBERT
New York Times

(Offered as a public service since the NY Times went to a subscriber/paid service for its op ed columns on Monday, which has resulted in its servers crashing so no one can sign up for the new service. Glad they don't handle disasters.)

The president is Lucy, and he's holding a football. We're Charlie Brown.

In an eerily lit, nationally televised appearance outside the historic St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans, President Bush promised the world to the Gulf Coast residents whose lives were upended by Hurricane Katrina.

He seemed to be saying that no effort, no amount of money, would be spared. Two hundred billion dollars? No problem. This will be bigger than the Marshall Plan. The end of the rainbow is here.

"Throughout the area hit by the hurricane," said Mr. Bush, "we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives."

The country has put its faith in Mr. Bush many times before, and come up empty. It may be cynical, but my guess is that if we believe him again this time, we're going to end up on our collective keisters, just like Charlie Brown, who could never stop himself from kicking mightily at empty space, which was all that was left each time Lucy snatched the ball away.

In March 2003, in another nationally televised address, the president told us we had no choice but to go to war with Iraq because Saddam Hussein was sitting on "some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." So we went to war, even though Saddam had not attacked us, and now - two years and $200 billion later - we're stuck there. Close to a couple of thousand brave men and women have come back in coffins (no pictures, please) and thousands more have been maimed.

The weapons? As Emily Litella would have said, "Never mind."

In the same lavish way that Mr. Bush is promising to rebuild New Orleans and the rest of the storm-damaged Gulf Coast, he assured us and the rest of the world that the invasion he was ordering would lead to the rebuilding of Iraq and its devastated economy. "Freed from the weight of oppression," he said, "Iraq's people will be able to share in the progress and prosperity of our time."

But last Thursday, the very same day that he delivered his speech in New Orleans, the World Bank released a report showing that the continued violence in Iraq had frightened away private investors, slowed reconstruction and disrupted oil production.

The Times reported yesterday that even in Najaf, an Iraqi city often cited by the U.S. as a success story, American officials have acknowledged that reconstruction projects "are hobbled by poor planning, corrupt contractors and a lack of continuity among the rotating coalition officers."

Polls have shown that over the past two years Americans have lost a great deal of faith in Mr. Bush, who tends to talk a good game but doesn't seem to know how to deliver. Thursday night's speech was designed to halt that slide.

But Mr. Bush's new post-Katrina persona defies belief. The same man who was unforgivably slow to respond to the gruesome and often fatal suffering of his fellow Americans now suddenly emerges from the larva of his ineptitude to present himself as - well, nothing short of enlightened.

Not only was he proposing a Gulf Coast Marshall Plan, but he was declaring, in words that made his conservative followers gasp, that poverty in the U.S. "has roots in a history of racial discrimination which cut off generations from the opportunity of America."

If you were listening to the radio, you might have thought you were hearing the ghost of Lyndon Johnson. "We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action," said Mr. Bush.

He was being Lucy again, enticing us with the football. But before we commence kicking the air, consider the facts.

This president has had zero interest in attacking poverty, and the result has been an increase in poverty in the U.S., the richest country in the world, in each of the last four years. Instead of attacking poverty, the Bush administration has attacked the safety net and has stubbornly refused to stop the decline in the value of the minimum wage on his watch.

You can believe that he's suddenly worried about poor people if you want to. What is more likely is that his reference to racism and poverty was just another opportunistic Karl Rove moment, never to be acted upon.

Charlie Brown's sister, Sally, once asked how often someone could be fooled with the same trick. She answered her own question: "Pretty often, huh?"

Quote, unquote

"This is a matter of public policy, And whether it's race-based or not, if you give your tax cuts to the rich and hope everything works out all right, and poverty goes up and it disproportionately affects black and brown people, that's a consequence of the action made. That's what they did in the '80s; that's what they've done in this decade. In the middle, we had a different policy."

--Ex-President Bill Cllinton

Reynolds: Wingnut or nutjob?

State Sen. Tom Reynolds, described in a Sunday column and subsequent post as teetering on the lunatic fringe, was given a chance to redeem himself by Republican radio talk show host Charlie Sykes today.

Reynolds blamed Sykes for his image, or at least for being the one to start using "nutjob" to describe him, back when Reynolds was running for Congress in a GOP primary against Mac Davis. (Reynolds won the primary, but was slaughtered in the general because Rep. Jerry Kleczka portrayed him as a wingnut.

As if the things he's said and done in the years since then wouldn't have earned him the recognition anyway, with or without Sykes.

We prefer wingnut to nutjob. But either is accurate, and Reynolds' time on Sykes did nothing to dispel that image.

Meanwhile, Watchdog Milwaukee reveals that Reynolds' print shop is cranking out material for a group that believes Pope John Paul II was "a minister of Satan."

Who's on First, 2005 edition

Bush: Condi! Nice to see you. What's happening?

Condi: Sir, I have the report here about the new leader of China.

Bush: Great. Lay it on me.

Condi: Hu is the new leader of China.

Bush: That's what I want to know.

Condi: That's what I'm telling you.

Bush: That's what I'm asking you. Who is the new leader of China?

Condi: Yes.

Bush: I mean the fellow's name.

Condi: Hu.

Bush: The guy in China.

Condi: Hu.

Bush: The new leader of China.

Condi: Hu.

Bush: The main man in China!

Condi: Hu is leading China.

Bush: Now whaddya' asking me for?

Condi: I'm telling you, Hu is leading China.

Bush: Well, I'm asking you. Who is leading China?

Condi: That's the man's name.

Bush: That's who's name?

Condi: Yes.

Bush: Will you, or will you not, tell me the name of the new leader of China?

Condi: Yes, sir.

Bush: Yassir? Yassir Arafat is in China? I thought he's dead in the Middle East.

Condi: That's correct.

Bush: Then who is in China?

Condi: Yes, sir.

Bush: Yassir is in China?

Condi: No, sir.

Bush: Then who is?

Condi: Yes, sir.

Bush: Yassir?

Condi: No, sir.

Bush: Look Condi. I need to know the name of the new leader of China. Get me the Secretary General of the U.N. on the phone.

Condi: Kofi?

Bush: No, thanks.

Condi: You want Kofi?

Bush: No.

Condi: You don't want Kofi.

Bush: No. But now that you mention it, I could use a glass of milk. And then get me the U.N.

Condi: Yes, sir.

Bush: Not Yassir! The guy at the U.N.

Condi: Kofi?

Bush: Milk! Will you please make the call?

Condi: And call who?

Bush: Who is the guy at the U.N?

Condi: Hu is the guy in China

Bush: Will you stay out of China?!

Condi: Yes, sir.

Bush: And stay out of the Middle East! Just get me the guy at the U.N.

Condi: Kofi.

Bush: All right! With cream and two sugars.

Take 2: The speech W should have given

Whitney Gould,in her Journal Sentinel column, on the speech George Bush should have given in New Orleans:

My fellow Americans:

There are a few things I left out from my speech to you last week about how we're going to help the good people of the Gulf Coast recover from the horrors of Hurricane Katrina. When I told you that I am responsible for the problems with the relief effort, what I should have said is that the initial federal response was not just slow; it was incompetent. The heartbreak of watching so much human misery unfold will haunt me for the rest of my life.

Sure, the state and local governments were plenty disorganized. But they don't have the resources that we have at the federal level. If we had taken the time to read and heed all those warnings from our own experts about the effects of a storm like Katrina, we would have been better prepared to lead the charge. We are going to make sure a catastrophe like this never happens again.

Read the rest

Support for Iraq withdrawal date growing

Sen. Russ Feingold may have struck a responsive chord with voters with his call for a target date to witdraw US troops from Iraq by the end of 2006.

A new polling report from Pew Research Center says most measures of people's attitudes about Iraq don't show much change. But there is growing support for setting a timetable for withdrawal.

Feingold still stands alone in Congress as the only one with enough nerve to suggest a specific date.

The Pew report:

Despite a long summer with continued casualties, and a widely covered anti-war protest outside the president's vacation ranch, public attitudes on the war in Iraq are remarkable for their overall stability. Most continue to see the military effort in Iraq going either very (12%) or fairly (41%) well, and the proportion that says taking military action there was the right decision has held steady at 49%, while 44% think it was the wrong decision. A slim 51% majority believes the U.S. should keep military troops in Iraq until the situation has stabilized, while 45% want to bring troops home as soon as possible.

An equal number believes that military action in Iraq has helped the war on terrorism as say it has hurt. This represents a slight improvement since July, but is consistent with most measures taken since mid-2004 that show the public divided on this question.

...But Growing Call for Timetable

But public optimism about the long-term continues to wane, and support for setting a timetable for when U.S. troops will be withdrawn from Iraq has risen notably. The proportion of Americans who think the situation in Iraq is likely to turn out to be like Vietnam rose from 29% a year ago to 35% this June to 39% today. This shift has been most pronounced among independents and younger people. A year ago, just 29% of independents saw Iraq turning into another Vietnam; today, a 46% plurality expresses this view. And the number of Americans under age 30 who foresee Iraq becoming another Vietnam has doubled from 22% to 42% over the same time period.
In this regard, the most notable shift in public opinion about the situation in Iraq over the summer is increasing support for the idea of setting a timetable for troop withdrawal, from 49% in July to 57% today.
The idea of a timetable has opened up a rare fissure among typically unified Republicans. Currently, a 58% majority of moderate and liberal Republicans say the U.S. should set a timetable for when troops will be withdrawn from Iraq, up from 36% two months ago. By comparison, a 58% majority of conservative Republicans oppose the idea of setting such a timetable.

Reynolds: A first-class wingnut,with emphasis on the 'nut'

OK, I will admit that I sometimes throw the term "wingnut" around a little loosely. It's an easy way to characterize conservatives. Although I try to use it only to describe those on the lunatic fringe of the right wing (the Earth Is Flat Society), I probably use it more than is appropriate.

After all, just because they're right wingers doesn't mean they're nuts. Not necessarily, anyway.

Then there is State Sen. Tom Reynolds, a nut by any definition.

I've written about him a few times, like his latest idea to let the voters vote on the governors' budget vetoes, or raising the speed limit to save people money on speeding tickets. I kid you not.

But none of my attempts have fully captured the real Loony Tunes outlook of State Sen. Reynolds the way that a Sunday Spivak and Bice column did. The online headline is an understated "Reynolds exhibits signs of quirkiness," but in print the page one head is "Reynolds scares his own party," and the jump headline is, "Reynolds' modus operandi makes GOP nervous it will lose a safe seat."

At great length, the Spice Boys detail one Reynolds brain fart after another, obviously relying pretty heavily on ex-staffers, who either bailed out or were fired by Reynolds because they weren't "loyal" enough -- even after surviving job interviews in which he asked them about their virginity.

Reynolds has been on the Democratic target list for 2006 for some time, even though it is a Republican district on paper. The problem is that Reynolds has not had enough exposure for voters in the district to really get to know how loony he is.

When Reynolds ran repeatedly for Congress, Rep. Jerry Kleczka easily defeated him and managed to convey to the voters that Reynolds was way out on the fringe -- a wingnut, if you will.

That's what needs to happen next year, when Reynolds runs for reelection.

There is plenty of ammunition and Democrats are gearing up. One candidate, Wauwatosa Ald. Jim Sullivan, has already been working for months, and another, Rep. Tony Staskunas, is thinking about running. One theory is that Staskunas, who is anti-abortion, would neutralize that crowd, but the fact is most of the so-called "single issue" people will vote Republican anyway.

Whoever ends up as the Democratic nominee will have a real shot at the seat. The more voters find out about the guy they elected in 2002, the less likely they will be to do it again.

Interestingly, Republican radio talker Mark Belling's most recent newspaper column warns GOP lawmakers that they need to move farther right, and offers Reynolds' primary victory as an example -- a good example. Earlier post.

John Stocks: Katrina-- hummingbirds, butterflies, gut-wrenching decisions

Report from John Stocks:

SLIDELL-Thursday morning

I said my goodbyes to Adam, Becky and the children last night after we celebrated the electricity. Up early before the sun. Slipped out quietly so as not to wake anyone. Drove the truck and trailer to Adam's house to load the drying equipment.

The neighborhood is quiet as the sun comes up. We left the blower fans and dehumidifier on all night to continue drying out the house.

A high speed buzzing noise orbits around my head. I duck to avoid being stung. In mid-flight a small object suspends itself in front of my face. A minature hummingbird scans my face, its beak darting back and forth and in a flash it is off with its partner circling the house.

I pull the equipment (12 fans, one industrial dehumidifier, tool boxes, tarps, etc). Load and secure it in the trailer for the long trip home. As I sit in the cab getting situated to leave, a monarch butterfly lands on the truck side mirror.

Nature's advance team is returning to scout the area. Hummigbirds and butterflies are good omens. I feel better about my departure.

As I leave Slidell, my thoughts drift to my mother, an environmental activist who got her start fighting to preserve the Louisana wetlands from overdevelopment. As a child I remember tagging along with her to meetings of the New Orleans Ecology Center and the Delta Chapter of the Sierra Club. She fought passionately to preserve the Atchafalaya Basin's ecological significance and cultural heritage.

These were seminal experiences for a young New Orleanian growing up in the tumult over civil rights, the Vietnam War and the emerging environmental movement. Now the city is awash in an environmental catastrophe for which the preservation of the Louisiana wetlands will play an important part in its recovery.

Hurrican Katrina has shown us, if we are open to its lessons, that the struggles over human poverty, adequate housing, a quality education, meaningful employment, the role of government in domestic affairs and the preservation of the environment are all interconnected struggles. These struggles are interrelated and starkly displayed in the aftermath of the storm.

Clare Hilliker has passed from this earth but I felt her presence with me today.

JACKSON-Gut wrenching decisions

Five hours drive time to Jackson. Hundreds of FEMA trucks headed south towing 'fifth wheel' campers for temporary housing.

Arrive to warm greetings from the Ewell's. Lois, Elouise and I go to lunch to discuss a game plan for moving out of the Comfort Inn. They inform me that the families are going to have to split up. Lois must seek employment in Louisiana in order to finish her year and 5 months before retirement.

Stacy and Jerald's employer is relocating to Dallas and wants them to arrive on Monday. The three girls will live with their father in Tennessee until Stacy gets oriented to her new job and finds suitable housing.

Elouise will go with Lois, Courtney and Vachaun to 'the country' (Donaldsonville, Louisiana area) where Lucinda grew up and is buried.

From the Comfort Inn in Jackson where they expected to be for two or three days to ride out the hurricane to splitting up the families between Tennessee, Texas and Louisiana. These decisions are gut wrenching. A deep sadness persists as they face the reality of their circumstances. Tough decisions driven by these women's innate human instinct to provide for the well being for their children's future. I so admire the strength they exhibit under the stresses of their unforeseen situation.

These families never ever thought they would leave New Orleans. It has been home all their lives. The thought of not returning is almost unbearable. There is trepidation and apprehension in their voices as they lay out the plan.

I assure them that we will assist in making the transitions to their new communities less daunting.

I can't help but think that once again in New Orleans' history, families are being forced to split up. I feel very helpless tonight....

John Stocks

---

How you can help.

Latest 'voter fraud' report doesn'tproduce much except media coverage

Gasp! Horror!

What is the latest terrible discovery of voter fraud in Wisconsin?

as DubyaIsFredo points out:

The definitive results (and hold your breath): The absentee ballots of four voters who passed away before Election Day (aka – “The Day Diebold Spoke for America”) were counted, when they shouldn’t have been.

But the latest report was worth a 60 -- count 'em, 60! -- inch story in the Journal Sentinel, starting on page one and with an inside headline that says, "Vote fraud likely exists beyond Milwaukee, audit says."

What it actually says is that there is a problem keeping voter lists up to date, which could allow people to vote more than once -- not that anyone is actually doing it.

Back to DubyaIsFredo, on how the media coverage works:

That doesn't keep these claims off the air, out of print and unreported on the internets. Republicans have mastered the rules of the He Said/She Said brand of journalism practiced by much of the media.

The formula goes like this, Republicans can insist, for instance, the Earth is flat. Democrats will offer up that the world is round, and include scientific evidence proving such. The story will include both statements, one after the other, leaving the reader with the impression the truth is somewhere in the middle. Perhaps the Earth is concave.

Eye On Wisconsin notes that the problems are widespread, even in Republican areas like Waukesha, although the GOP focus is always on Milwaukee.

There's a reason for that. Too many Democrats, and way too many black people, are voting in Milwaukee to suit the GOP. So the effort to make it harder for them -- including not just photo IDs but an end to registration at the polls -- continues. The harder the Republicans push, the more likely those folks will vote Democratic. So that, I guess, is the silver lining to this "voter fraud" witchhunt.

And, over Sheboygan way, Sadie says that State Sen. Joe Leibham, sponsor of the photo ID bill, still doesn't get it. Those dead people would have voted even with an ID.

Gard not "Republican" enough?

 

This is one of those items that seems like satire but turns out to be true.

Assembly Speaker John Gard -- the guy I call SpongeJohn GardPants for his gay-bashing, is under fire from radio wingnut Mark Belling, who claims he has somehow sold out and moderated his positions since deciding to run for Congress.

Belling writes:

Gard has been co-opted. The John Gard I used to know sneered at tired GOP sellouts like Dale Schultz and Mike Ellis (another Senate Republican moderate). But the Gard of 2005 has become what he used to detest. The combination of his personal political motivations and his frustration over being outmaneuvered by Doyle has rendered him useless to his Republican Assembly members. If he doesn’t know enough to quit, they need to replace him.

So Gard, who has been driving the guns,God and gays agenda in the legislature, is now not right-wing enough?

Even more interesting is this Belling analysis:

The Gard and Schultz malaise problem is part of a larger one for Wisconsin Republicans. Their voting base is a lot more conservative than they are. Wisconsin Republican voters want tax relief, real election reforms, major cuts in spending at the bloated University of Wisconsin System and an overall reduction in the state budget. Their elected assemblymen and senators, way too inculcated in the Madison culture, prefer to maintain the state’s status quo. This abandonment of their own base has made the sellout Republicans very vulnerable to challenge within their own party.

Whenever a conservative takes on a moderate in a Republican primary, the conservative challenger wins. In 2002, incumbent Republican Sen. Peggy Rosenzweig was thrashed in a GOP primary in her Wauwatosa-area district by right-winger Tom Reynolds. Last year, Senate Republican leader Mary Panzer, a moderate, lost by a whopping 4-to-1 margin to the far more conservative Glenn Grothman. In 2006, Menomonee Falls state Rep. Suzanne Jeskewitz will be opposed by Chris Slinker, a former legislative aide and Menomonee Falls trustee.

Jeskewitz is part of the cabal that has run Menomonee Falls (badly) for years. In the state Assembly GOP caucus, she has consistently fought against tax freezes and spending limits. She has been silent on issues like Milwaukee-area vote fraud and overcompensation of state school teachers. If Slinker, a conservative, raises all of these issues against the more moderate Jeskewitz, she’ll go down in the same flames that engulfed Rosenzweig and Panzer.

That analysis only holds up in districts which are safely Republican -- where winning the GOP primary is a guarantee you will win the election.

In fact, the Republican agenda in the legislature -- especially in the Assembly, where Gard is the Speaker -- has been far to the right of the electorate, even on a common sense issue like the minimum wage, let alone abortion, stem cell research, and other issues where the leadership has staked out an extreme position.

A Republican from a competitive district who backs the wingnut agenda could be in trouble come election time.

If Gard is moderating his views -- and I have seen little evidence to support that --it is because the Congressional district he wants to represent, while leaning Republican, is not a lock for the GOP nominee. The 8th CD is not as Republican as the Assembly district Gard represents.

As much as we complain about it, Democrats should welcome the Republican move to the extreme right. The farther they move in that direction, the more likely it is that the voters will respond by electing Democrats.

Belling's column.

'Guns don't kill kids';kids kill themselves and each other

From my good buddies, The Gun Guys:

Sad results from a study released by Pediatrics online journal (as seen in USA Today. )

About 1.7 million U.S. children live in homes with unlocked, loaded firearms. Only 18 states have laws requiring proper storage to limit access by children to the firearms, and of those, only 7 make it a felony to give minors access to weapons. Clearly, more children have more access to firearms than ever, and there are no laws either on the books or in the legislation in over 30 states in the country to protect children from firearms.

And the Pedatrics report says there are already consquences to this widespread danger. Of 1,400 children and teens who were killed in 2002, 90% of them were at home when it happened. The NRA preaches "responsible gun ownership," but the truth is that no matter what steps you take or what procedures you follow, having a gun in your home is statistically dangerous to any children in the same house. Heck, it's just plain dangerous to anyone you have around, young or old.

How can we keep guns out of kids' hands? Two studies have already shown how: states with laws in place to prevent firearm access by minors see accidental deaths and teen suicides decline. Period. If we keep guns away from children, we'll save their lives.

USA Today even has a soundbite from an NRA spokesman. "No one can legislate responsibility," he says. Which is true-- no law or amount of laws can make anyone do the right thing. They can only ensure that there are consequences to doing the wrong thing. But we can pass laws that keep guns out of the homes of children. And why shouldn't we? We already fight to keep guns off of school property, where kids spend half their day. And where do they spend the other half?

At home. The other place guns don't belong.

Lessons from Katrina

Jim Rowen, in a Capital Times op ed column, offers five imperatives for change in the aftermath of Katrina.

Unfortunately, if I were a betting man I would say we won't do any of them.

An interview with George Galloway

In anticipation of Sunday's speech at UW-Madison by George Galloway, former member of the British Parliament-- and to give the right wing something to scream about for the next couple of days -- here's an interview with the controversial (to say the least) Galloway.

All together now: 1-2-3 -- Academic freedom! Sifting and winnowing!

AlterNet interview.

Bush and Katrina

I am withholding comment on President Bush's speech from New Orleans until I hear what the irrepressible F. Jim Sensenbrenner has to say.

I figure that will spice up any commentary I might have to offer.

Wisconsin solidly pro-choice, survey shows

This is the kind of poll that makes the anti-choice people even nuttier than usual, because it contradicts what they've been telling legislators for years.

When you ask Wisconsin residents the simple question, "On abortion, are you pro-life or pro-choice?" the response is overwhelmingly pro-choice.

Survey USA, which does polls in all 50 states, using random phone numbers, asked that question in mid-August of 577 adults.

Results for Wisconsin show a solid 57%-39% majority consider themselves pro-choice.

Every time there's a survey with these results, the anti-choice people issue a flood if press releases and statements claiming the poll is wrong, their own polls are better, and that Wisconsin is really anti-abortion.

Well, this poll even gave them the advantage in the question, using their own term, "pro-life." Of course, it doesn't test any of the other extreme language they have invented, like "partial birth abortion," to pry people away from their pro-choice attitudes. It just asks the question straight.

But the results show that people in almost every demographic are pro-choice. The only exceptions: 60% among Republicans say and 61% among conservatives say they are "pro-life."

It makes you wonder why these extremists have such clout in the legislature. It's because, like the National Rifle Association, they organize, threaten and bully legislators, who end up voting against the wishes of their constituents.

Nationally, Wisconsin ranked 17th of the 50 states in the percentage of pro-choice respondents. Vermont (!) was first, Utah last.

Naked boys to sing again

A gay musical revue, shut down by a combination of homophobia and bureaucracy, will perform again in Milwaukee, running for more than a month starting Oct. 29. It's had enough free publicity that it will probably do well at the box office.

The show, "Naked Boys Singing," was closed by the police vice squad after a homophobic street evangelist complained and city bureaucracy decided the venue hosting the show lacked a required license. That turned out -- too late -- not to be true.

No word on whether, like the BoDeans, they will sing from the outdoor balcony of the Pabst Theater.

-- From Working for Change. Click on cartoon to enlarge.

Programming note update

W has screwed up tonight's TV schedule as well as everything else, so the Letterman show with the Nevilles, the Meters and Marcia Ball will air Friday night instead.

Bush eats cockroach of responsibility

From the editor of The Progressive:

Bush Eats Cockroach of Responsibility

By Matthew Rothschild

Wow, that must have been a hard sell to go to the President and tell him he’d have to accept responsibility for Katrina.

Bush thinks being President means never having to say you’re sorry. He told Bob Woodward once that the “interesting thing about being the President” was “I don’t feel like I owe anybody an explanation.”

But now he’s got a lot of explaining to do.

“To the extent that the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility,” he said, looking all the world like he’d just eaten a raw cockroach.

Be honest: To a huge extent, the federal government didn’t fully do its job.

So Bush must take responsibility for all of that, and for many of the needless deaths in Katrina’s aftermath.

This was Bush’s bad karma: His cronyism, his detachment, and his disdain for domestic public works have come back to haunt him.

But this isn’t a game of political gotcha.

It’s an indictment of a style and an ideology of governance, with real human costs.

And how embarrassing is it for the man who prided himself so much on his role as protector of the nation after 9/11 to have to now confess that he’s not even sure the federal government is prepared to deal with “a severe attack or another severe storm”?

The best Bush could muster was, “That’s a very important question.”

Yeah, it is.

And it’s his job to have an adequate answer for that question. Five years later, he still can’t come up with one.

Quote, unquote

Bush says he doesn’t want to play the “Blame Game.” Makes sense. Never heard of a chicken who wanted to play the “Extra Crispy” game.

--Will Durst, The Progressive

Penguins: Nature porn and bedtime story

This from Grist:

How I spent my summer vacation ... at the movies. This summer, moviegoers could feel justified in ignoring the nagging voice that tells you not to duck into a movie theater on a "perfectly nice day" (thanks, Mom).

Why was "March of the Penguins" such a big hit? It cut across the cultural divide, for one thing, somehow appealing to evangelicals and eco-freaks (not that they are always mutually exclusive.)
From the review:

The movie doesn't shy away from danger and death, but Morgan Freeman's warm, fatherly narration imposes order, transforming the penguins into the best possible version of us: simpler, purer, more devoted to their families and friends. The movie has even been embraced, the somewhat-obsessed NY Times also tells us, by Christian leaders who say it affirms the values of monogamy and intelligent design (not, says Jacquet, his intention). Penguins is thus the ultimate combination of nature porn and bedtime story -- and the summer's breakout hit. Whether people really think penguins fall in love or not, the film -- which cost about $7 million to make -- has grossed nearly $67 million since being released in the U.S. on June 25. It recently displaced Bowling for Columbine to become the second-highest-grossing documentary in film history -- right behind Fahrenheit 9/11.

No, I have not seen it. I'm waiting for the paperback version.

Programming note

David Letterman's Thursday night show will feature New Orleans music from the Nevilles, the Meters, and Marcia Ball.

You may have to sit through a visit with Ted Turner to get to it, but it'll be worth it.

John Stocks: Power back in Slidell

From John Stocks…

It is early in the morning on Thursday.

SLIDELL-Electricity Restored Prompts Celebration

We take for granted the importance of electricity to our daily lives. What it does for us, how much it costs and how it is produced. Working with electricity produced by a portable generator has its limitations. Without the generator we purchased in Wisconsin and hauled down to Louisiana, we might not have beaten the mold.

Itinerant Roofing Crews

The US Corps of Engineers provides a valuable service to people with damaged roofs. They install blue tarps over the damaged areas for free.

Yesterday three itinerant roofing crews showed up in the neighborhood. One crew was black out of northern Mississippi, one crew Hispanic out of Texas and the other crew was white out of northern Louisiana. Each crew working in the boiling sun on our roof and others in the neighborhood. I was struck how these crews were segregated by race but not by class. I wondered if there was a Ceasar Chavez, Dr. Martin Luther King or a Mother Jones in their midst who could cross the barriers of race and ethnicity and lead them around their common economic self interests. Maybe someday.

I brought them cold water from our ice chest. They finished their jobs and moved on.

Falling Hazard Trees

Fell two pine trees with broken and dangling limbs in the backyard. First tree fell perfectly between the neighbors fence and the house. Bucked it up and hauled it away.

Cut the second tree. It was a perfect notch and the hinge wood on the back cut was going to lay it down in the target zone.

Just my luck and stupidity. I hung it up in a neighbor's pine. A faller's worst nightmare. They don't call them 'widow makers' for nothin. Got the truck...Becky bought a tow strap and we jerked it out of the neighbor's tree. Bucked it up and there it lay. I think I will keep my day job.

NORTH TO JACKSON

After packing up the drying equipment, I will leave for Jackson, Ms., the Comfort Inn and the long road home. Adam and Becky are in better shape. They can manage the chaos now.

It is time to refocus my attention on the Ewell's and their impending decision about where to relocate. Lois and I have discussed it briefly but I need to be a sounding board for her and the family as they process their options.

Last night New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said on Larry King Live that he would announce a phased in repopulation plan for the city tomorrow. I pray it doesn't raise false hopes. These people have gone through enough.

RELIEF FUND CONTRIBUTORS AND PEOPLE SENDING PACKAGES

First, a big thank you to all who have contributed and will contribute to the relief fund. The bulk of the remaining funds and additional funds contributed will probably be used for the costs of relocating the Ewell families. More on that later.

Also thanks to the many people around the country who have sent packages to the Ewell's at the Comfort Inn. networks of colleagues, friends and family.

[If you want to help, go to Saving Hope, a new website.]

THANKS TO THE NEA

My deepest appreciation to Reg Weaver, John Wilson and others at the NEA for allowing me to take this time to assist my family. I am truly blessed to work with such kind and caring people.

BIGGEST FEAR

My biggest fear is that as soon as Hurricane Katrina 'comes off the front page' the families of New Orleans will fall victim to America's 24 hour new cycle and short attention span. Witness the Iraq War. Please help us make sure that this doesn't happen.

John Stocks

Stoughton next for Wal-Mart recall?

Stoughton's city council fell one vote short of clearing the way for a new Wal-Mart store, the Wisconsin State Journal reports.

The circumstances are almost the same as what happened in Jefferson. By one vote, Wal-Mart supporters fell short of the two-thirds vote needed to annex land to build the store.

In Jefferson,Wal-Mart backers launched a recall campaign against Dave Olsen, one of the aldermen who voted no. That election is Sept. 27.

Is a Stoughton recall next?

Falk for governor? Walker for Congress?

Best advice for writers: Write what you know.

It can be amusing when you don't, like when Owen at Boots and Sabers says he "has been told" that Kathleen Falk is getting ready to run for governor against Jim Doyle in the primary.

"It may not be true, but the prospect sure is interesting," he says.

Well, it is blatantly untrue, as any Wisconsin Democrat could have told him. But that wouldn't have been as interesting.

I don't know if it's true that Scott Walker plans to run against F. Jim Sensenbrenner in the primary next year, instead of running for governor. But the prospect sure is interesting.

On a similar note, the departure of DOA Secretary Marc Marotta caused Brian Christianson at Free Will to speculate that he would run for the Supreme Court, and Lakeshore Laments had him running for attorney general. Marotta is not doing either, of course.

Quote, unquote

... [A] big challenge our country faces is to re-build a number of our cities and at least three of our states after Hurricane Katrina. We cannot do this as long as we continue to make Iraq the 51st state! It is time we looked after our own backyard. We are spending more money in Iraq than rebuilding New Orleans, Biloxi, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. It is time to bring our troops home — especially the National Guard that was created to guard America and to deal with disasters in our own country rather than being sent to die in the deserts in Iraq. It is time to put America first.

-- Former Sen. and ex-Veterans Affairs Secretary Max Cleland

If 'Media matters' for real,don't parrot false Fox news

When you teach college journalism and use the term "media matters" in your blog, people might expect a little more than repackaged right wing propaganda and talking points.

But on Tuesday Jessica McBride regurgitated a misleading claim from Fox News that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin had pulled up stakes and moved his family to Dallas.

A quick check with Media Matters for America might have saved her parroting false information on her very own McBride's Media Matters.

Media Matters for America points out:

Echoing Hume's misleading report, Limbaugh falsely claimed that New Orleans mayor "has moved to Texas"

On September 13, nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh falsely claimed that New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin has "totally left town" and "has moved to Texas ... where his kids are enrolled in school." While the New Orleans Times-Picayune did report on September 10 that "Nagin has purchased a home for his family in Dallas and enrolled his young daughter in school there," the paper added that Nagin "said he will remain in the Crescent City [New Orleans] while his family lives for the next six months in Dallas, making occasional visits to his family when possible."

On September 12, The Dallas Morning News cited the Times-Picayune article and correctly noted that Nagin said he would remain in New Orleans while his family lives temporarily in Dallas.

Limbaugh's misinformation echoed a misleading "Political Grapevine" segment on the September 12 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume. Citing The Dallas Morning News, host Brit Hume claimed that "Nagin pulled up stakes and moved his family to Dallas," where he "has already bought a house ... and enrolled his daughter in school." But Hume did not disclose that The Dallas Morning News article -- as well as the Times-Picayune article on which it was based -- stated that Nagin said he would remain in New Orleans. Hume made a similarly misleading statement on the September 13 edition of Special Report, noting without additional explanation that Nagin "has now moved his family to his new home in Dallas."

From the September 13 broadcast of The Rush Limbaugh Show:

LIMBAUGH: Ray Nagin, the mayor, who has moved to Texas. He's totally left town. Mayor Nagin has left town, set up stakes in, I think, Dallas, where his kids are enrolled in school. Says the city is bankrupt, and, uh, they need help.

From the September 12 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume:

HUME: New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin greeted President Bush when Mr. Bush arrived in Louisiana last night and was at his side as he fielded questions on the Katrina relief efforts this morning. That quality time with the president, however, marks the mayor's first visit to the disaster area since Wednesday, when Nagin pulled up stakes and moved his family to Dallas. The Dallas Morning News reports that Nagin has already bought a house in the city and enrolled his daughter in school there. When the mayor appeared on [NBC's] Meet the Press on Sunday from Dallas, he was never asked about his presence there, or his decision to move his family.

From the September 13 edition of Special Report with Brit Hume:

HUME: But despite the lack of funds, Mayor Nagin, who has now moved his family to his new home in Dallas, says he won't stand for state or federal officials assigning reconstruction projects without the approval of city officials, saying, quote, "I don't want anybody outside of New Orleans planning nothing as it relates to how we're going to rebuild this city without us signing off on it."

While the New Orleans Times-Picayune did report on September 10 that "Nagin has purchased a home for his family in Dallas and enrolled his young daughter in school there," the paper added that Nagin "said he will remain in the Crescent City [New Orleans] while his family lives for the next six months in Dallas, making occasional visits to his family when possible."

On September 12, The Dallas Morning News cited the Times-Picayune article and correctly noted that Nagin said he would remain in New Orleans while his family lives temporarily in Dallas

To that add McBride's Sept. 13 report:

Now comes the news that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has purchased a home in Dallas and enrolled his daughter in school there. Hardly sends a message of resolve, rebuilding, and hope for New Orleans, does it? He's also rarely been at the disaster site since.

As for McBride's claim that he's rarely been at the disaster site since,Nagin is pictured above riding through the disaster site with a guy named "W" on the day of her post.

What a surprise

Republicans don't want an independent investigation of what happened in the aftermath of Katrina.

Every single Republican in the Senate voted against it today, killing the proposal.

There will be other attempts, but the GOP and Bush White House have everything to lose and nothing to gain from a real investigation looking for facts.

They are disciplined. And they are shameless.

Can't wait to hear Bush start the finger-pointing Thursday night. Story.

DID BUSH FIRE THE WRONG GUY?

Actually, it was technically Homeland Security Honcho Michael Chertoff who fired FEMA's Michael Brown. This Knight Ridder story suggests that Chertoff, not Brown, was the one who had the authority to order a massive federal response and delayed it.

Sensenbrenner is consistently heartless;blocks bankruptcy relief for victims, too

Sen. Russ Feingold's proposal to ease the financial strain on Katrina survivors picked up some editorial support from the Wisconsin State Journal, among others. But guess who's standing in the way of helping hurricane victims again? F. Heartless Sensenbrenner.

The newspaper says, in part:

As if Hurricane Katrina hadn't hobbled the lives of many, a new bankruptcy law next month could kick them while they are down.

People have lost homes and jobs and are being financially crushed. Yet beginning Oct. 17, if they file for bankruptcy, they will find it harder to settle their debts.

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., is calling for a reasonable plan to delay the application of the law for Katrina victims. Feingold introduced a bill last week giving victims a year's grace period, during which the old bankruptcy law will apply.

He's also seeking changes to the new law that would help victims of other natural disasters.

Feingold's legislation, which has been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee, deserves support.

It may not be as crucial as finding shelter and jobs for the suffering people, but it will help them in getting back on their feet.

Sensenbrenner, taking a few minutes off from counting his millions, says he won't even consider re-opening the bankruptcy law and won't hold a hearing. New York Times story.

At least he's consistent. In this case that's not a compliment. Previous post.

ANOTHER COUNTRY HEARD FROM. BBC News story.

Quote, unquote

“I’m tired of hearing helicopters overhead. I want to hear some jazz.”

--New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, telling WWL-TV he hopes that he can allow citizens who live Uptown, in the French Quarter and in Algiers to come back to their homes by Monday to get the city back in business.

John Stocks reports from Slidell

It has been three days since my last report.

SLIDELL- A RACE AGAINST MOLD AND MILDEW

Gypsum Dust and Gatorade

Adam's [John's brother] house is ready for bleaching and final drying. We removed all the carpet, the first four feet of sheetrock, the vanities, the doors and door frames, the cabinets, the furniture, essentially gutting the whole house.

Still no electricity. The generator which was purchased with relief funds has been a godsend. We have been able to run power tools, fans and the dehumidifier. Thanks to my brother in laws in Green Bay who loaned me their trailer and rented the drying equipment.

Today we spray a mix of bleach and water to further combat mold, mildew and bacterial growths.

Quick action in removing the carpet and subsequently the guts of the house has averted any signs of mold or mildew.

The neighbors who just returned this week are not so fortunate. Mold has taken hold in many homes.

The gypsum dust from the sheetrock turns your clothes white. It lodges in your hair, ears, nostrels and throat. You have got to keep your fluids up so you drink Gatorade to wash down the dust and replenish your electrolytes.

It is hot here. Temperatures in the 90's with high humidities.

As a young man I spent three summers on forest firefighting crews out west. It was hard but rewarding work. Between fires we did. 'project work' running chainsaws and clearing brush.

Well, I relived those days this week. Adam's back yard is covered with down pine trees, limbs and blown over fencing. I powered up the saw like old times and bucked up the mess. Funny, my body is not quite as resilient to this physical labor.

Rolled my ankle day hauling brush out of the backyard.. Overnight it got swollen and black and blue. Went to a local urgent care center and found out it wasn't broken. Doctor said to stay on it. Headed back to the house with an ankle brace and ibuprophen.

Tomorrow back to Jackson to check on the Ewell's and then home Thursday.

JACKSON-the Ewell Family

It looks like the Ewell's may split up which they wanted to avoid.

Stacy's company is setting up shop in Dallas. She will go there for her job. Her children will go to Tennessee to be with their father while she gets settled in a new city. Then the children will join her..

Lois, her daughter, her grandson and Eloise will likely head to the Donaldsonville, Louisiana area where Henry (their father) and Lucinda grew up and are buried. They have extended family there. Lois will look for a job in the Ascension Parish school district. Orleans Parish Schools are not going to open this year.

Lois says packages continue to arrive and that they are so grateful.

MCFARLAND, WI

My father and his wife have almost found all of their patients. It has been difficult. Telephone communications in the New Orleans area are spotty at best.

Connie and the kids have been great in welcoming my father and his wife into our house.

Still no word on when they can return to New Orleans.

Three families, Three stories, Three futures uncertain.

My deepest appreciation to all of you for your thoughts, prayers, support and assistance. It has made all the difference. This is not a sprint, it is a marathon.

Please feel free to share this with your networks of colleagues, friends and family.

John Stocks

---

If you want to help, go to Saving Hope, a new website.

Vos: Do as I say, not as I do; Abstinence for you, water for me

When we last looked in on State Rep. Robin Vos, R-Caledonia, you may recall that he was trolling for women on an Internet dating site, describing himself as a self-employed guy who just wanted to have a little fun.

Then he got some flak from Planned Parenthood for sponsoring a bill that could allow pharmacists to refuse to sell birth control pills. Vos said he would have to look into that, explaining, ""I'm a single guy. To say I am against birth control is to say I am against water."

That brings us to another bill he's sponsoring, which will get a hearing in the Senate Education committee on Thursday. The bill is from the Just Say No school of sex education.

It basically says that schools must spend more time on abstinence than on any other issue in sex education, and that abstinence from sexual activity is the preferred choice of behavior in relationships for unmarried people. Once teenagers hear that from a teacher, they probably won't even think of having sex. Why didn't someone think of this earlier?

Maybe it's time to check back with Vos on whether he's still in favor of water.

Waste, fraud and abuse guaranteed;Halliburton gets cleanup contract

It looks like F. Jim Sensenbrenner was right. There is guaranteed to be waste, fraud, and abuse in the New Orleans cleanup, because Halliburton got another big fat no-bid contract to do the work. Molly Ivins writes:

Of course, no one would suggest Halliburton and its subsidiaries get government contracts (more than $9 billion for reconstruction work in Iraq, with Pentagon audits thus far showing $1.03 billion in "questioned" costs and $422 million in "unsupported costs") just because Vice President Cheney is still on the payroll. Heavens no. The veep continues to receive deferred pay from the company he formerly headed -- $194,852 last year.

But Cheney has nothing to do with the Halliburton contracts -- that, friends, goes through none other than the noted lobbyist and former head of -- of all things -- the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Since Joe Allbaugh, who was Bush's campaign manger in 2000, left FEMA in December 2002, he has been busy making sure reconstruction contracts in Iraq go to companies that give generously to the Republican Party.

Now, aren't you ashamed of yourself for thinking there's something wrong with that? Besides, Allbaugh is now with a big-time Washington lobbying firm, where he also represents Shaw Group Inc., and -- viola -- Shaw Group, too, already has a $100 million emergency contract from FEMA for housing management and construction, and a $100 million order from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for Katrina repair.

Website helps Katrina victims

I've been passing on reports from John Stocks as he has tried to raise money and get help to his family and friends on the Gulf Coast, where he grew up.

Now there's a website with information on what's happening, what the needs are, and how you can help.

Visit it at http://www.savinghope.org/

Sensenbrenner sends a message, but what is it?

Rep. F Jim Sensenbrenner's vote against money to bring relief after Hurricane Katrina has found a defender, the Racine Journal Times.

Sensenbrenner was just "sending a message," the paper says.

Linking his vote to the misuse of some funds after the Sept. 11 attack is a stretch, but that's what the editorial does. It concludes:

There is no doubt the recovery bill for Hurricane Katrina will be a massive one and Americans don't begrudge the cost of rebuilding shattered lives and destroyed homes and businesses. But there is nothing wrong in advocating that these dollars go for their intended purposes or in demanding an accounting for how they are spent to make sure these dollars go as far as they can in providing help.

That's all that Sensenbrenner was saying - and it's a message that bears repeating.

There was more to Sensenbrenner's message than that.

He offered no amendments or improvements in accountability, just voted no.

His "no" vote was also a vote against increased funding for oversight of relief funds.

Contained within the spending measure approved by Congress last Thursday is a provision that directs an extra $15 million to the inspector general's office in the Department of Homeland Security. Bill summary.

This is in addition to the more than $83 million that is a part of the fiscal 2006 budget for the Office of Inspector General (OIG).

If that wasn't enough, Sensenbrenner could have proposed more. But he didn't. He just voted no.

His message was that he just didn't care about people, just money.

Others are considerably less kind than the Journal Times. Jim Rowen tells us that F. Jim's $70,000 stamp collection may have distracted him from what was happening in New Orleans or made it hard to relate to some of the evacuees. Rowen's column.

And DubyaIsFredo suggests F. Jim may have just wanted to do the opposite of Bush, no matter what -- not a bad place to be as W's numbers go into the toilet.

Bruce Murphy at Milwaukee Magazine says Sensebrenner's approach would set us back a century or more, and points out that Sensenbrenner is quicker to support throwing money at problems closer to home.

Kennedy campaign energized

Meanwhile, F. Jim's new notoriety has energized the campaign of his Democratic opponent, Bryan Kennedy.

Democracy for America is hosting an online vote to determine which congressional candidate will receive their first national endorsement of 2006. The winner will receive a DFA-List endorsement and a national e-mail, which could bring Kennedy's campaign some national attention.

To vote for Bryan Kennedy in the online vote: go here. Voting closes on Saturday at 4 p.m. Kennedy needs to finish in the top 10 to make the final round next week.

Green says we're safer;Public says, no we're not

Rep. Mark Green, founder of the Victory in Iraq caucus in Congress and still a true believer, used the Sept. 11 anniversary to again make the case for the war, saying in a statement that "the world is a safer place because of our efforts."

The American public doesn't think so. A CBS News poll taken Aug. 29-31 asked:

"In the four years since the attacks of September 11th 2001, do you think the threat of terrorism against the U.S. has increased, decreased, or has it stayed about the same?"

Thirty per cent said the threat has increased, 18% think it has decreased, and 49% say it has stayed the same.

The boy in the bubble

Time magazine on what may be a contributing factor to the disconnect on Katrina:

A … factor, aides and outside allies concede, is what many of them see as the President's increasing isolation. Bush's bubble has grown more hermetic in the second term, they say, with fewer people willing or able to bring him bad news — or tell him when he's wrong."

"Bush has never been adroit about this. A youngish aide who is a Bush favorite described the perils of correcting the boss. 'The first time I told him he was wrong, he started yelling at me,' the aide recalled about a session during the first term. 'Then I showed him where he was wrong, and he said, "All right. I understand. Good job." He patted me on the shoulder. I went and had dry heaves in the bathroom. . .'"

"The result is a kind of echo chamber in which good news can prevail over bad — even when there is a surfeit of evidence to the contrary."

"For example, a source tells TIME that four days after Katrina struck, Bush himself briefed his father and former President Clinton in a way that left too rosy an impression of the progress made. 'It bore no resemblance to what was actually happening,' said someone familiar with the presentation."

And an example. Bush, on the Gulf Monday,was asked about Michael Brown's resignation from FEMA. The pool report:

The president stopped to talk to the pool outside a one story school being repaired, just after 2 pm CDT. He made no news at the 28th Street Elementary School.

Asked about Mike Brown resigning, he said he hadn't spoken to Chertoff or Brown, but will be on AF One.

"Maybe you know something I don't know," he said of Brown.

"There will be plenty of time to figure out what went right and what went wrong. There's time to try to blame somebody but they want to get their lives back together."

No shortage of troops; Mercenaries in New Orleans

It certainly was reassuring to hear from President Bush that there is no shortage of troops or National Guard to help in the Katrina aftermath, even though 125,000 or so are in Iraq.

There are plenty of people to do what's needed in New Orleans, Bush said. Perhaps, but if that's the case, what are heavily-armed private security people doing on the streets?

This Alternet story reports:

Heavily armed paramilitary mercenaries from the Blackwater private security firm, infamous for their work in Iraq, are openly patrolling the streets of New Orleans. Some of the mercenaries say they have been "deputized" by the Louisiana governor; indeed some are wearing gold Louisiana state law enforcement badges on their chests and Blackwater photo identification cards on their arms. They say they are on contract with the Department of Homeland Security and have been given the authority to use lethal force.

Do you think the governor asked for mercenaries? What are they doing there? What next?

Get this news to Gov. Barrett

Well, here's some good news, and not necessarily for the Paul Bucher for AG campaign, which put out a press release boasting that he had won recent straw polls in Kenosha and Sheboygan.

Tom Barrett whupped Jim Doyle in straw polls two years running. But when it came to an actual election -- well, you know.

Exit Michael Brown

Sorry to see Michael Brown resign as the head of FEMA.

I heard he was doing a heck of a job.

Exit Brownie, enter Duct Tape Man.

Leibham gets spanked, makes phone call

State Sen. Joe Leibham (R-Sheboygan) gets an editorial spanking from his hometown Sheboygan paper over the phony "voter fraud" news conference he participated in recently in front of the home of some Milwaukee voters who had done nothing wrong.

That prompted a letter from a local GOP official, defending him, and then one from the woman whose son he falsely accused. She was less than pleased with the conversation, as Sadie reports.

On speaking ill of the recently departed

Charlie Sykes and I have had a little disagreement over whether protocol demands that we only talk about the good in people and refrain from criticism when they die, at least in the short-term. (I'm sure that's not how he would characterize the disagreement, but he has his own blog if he wants to disagree.)

At issue was a post I did after the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, pointing out that he was not without fault when it came to his record on civil liberties, among other things.

Now, James Widgerson, on his blog, Widgerson Library and Pub, referees, admits to a few post-mortem criticisms himself, and gives me his blessing, of sorts.

Quote, unquote

"I think it's pretty darned funny that George W. Bush intends to head an investigation of the slow response to Hurricane Katrina to see who screwed up. That would be like picking Hugh Hefner to head a blue ribbon committee to look into why there are so many pictures of nekkid women in Playboy." --John Kelso column in Austin American-Statesman.

Molly Ivins has some observations about W's investigation, too.

David Clarke: Elephant in Donkey Suit

Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke didn't do much to clarify his political party affiliation when he spoke with Spivak and Bice this week.

We've reported on his flirtation with the Republicans and his support for GOP candidates while he continues to pose as a Democrat at election time. Last week, we found Clarke listed as a member of a black Republican organization. His name has now disappeared from the website, although he claims he had nothing to do with it.

Spivak and Bice:

But Clarke repeated his well-worn spiel that he's not a politician and is a member of no political party. As for the election, yes, he said, he is running, but he insisted that it is way too early to focus on such a mundane matter.

Nice try, sheriff. Too bad your campaign filings paint a different picture.

Starting 2005 with nearly nothing in the bank, Clarke raised a healthy $45,000 during the first six months of this year, with the bulk of the cash coming at a May fund-raiser at Mo's Cucina. The event attracted donors from both sides of the aisle, though the biggest political names were all Republican, including state party Chairman Rick Graber, former Lt. Gov. Margaret Farrow and James Klauser, ex-Gov. Tommy Thompson's closest confidant.

It's understandable why Clarke might be too busy to think about his campaign. He's probably working on the duty roster for his innovative inner city patrol plan, now that Deputy Micael Schuh isn't available, due to injuries. Let's see, who else is on the shite list, as my Irish relatives would say?

Schuh is the deputy assigned to one-man foot patrol in a dangerous neighborhood for daring to criticize Clarke. Clarke has pretended he wasn't retaliating against Schuh, describing his assignment as the beginning of some new community policing plan. Unless he wants to have that exposed as totally bogus -- which it undoubtedly is -- Clarke will have to replace Schuch. Any volunteers?

Will New Orleans rush to rebuild or do it right?

A thoughtful San Francisco Chronicle story examines some of the questions and issues facing New Orleans as it decides how to rebuild.

San Francisco knows something about rebuilding, having suffered the nation's worst disaster until Katrina came along. John King, the paper's urban design writer, says:

And if history, including San Francisco's experience in 1906, is any indication, the response will be a determined return to life -- with an emphasis on getting things done quickly, rather than getting them done right.

The story ends with this observation from John Norquist (for whom I once worked, just to get that disclaimer out of the way):

The larger challenge is to rebuild the city in a way that truly serves its people -- offering good homes to residents of all incomes -- and that continues the architectural richness that is as much a part of New Orleans' character as jazz and creole food.

That could be difficult.

"You're going to see a lot of people in a hurry," said John Norquist. He is president of Congress for the New Urbanism, which advocates growth that does not rely on cars. But Norquist also is former mayor of Milwaukee, so he knows political dynamics.

"There will be a lot of pressure without a lot of thought to get something done," Norquist said. "If they build and build, or turn over big chunks of land to suburban (style) developers, the result will be a mess."

The best bet New Orleans has, Norquist suggested, is to take cues from what already exists.

"They should just affirm the street patterns and property lines that already exist. The city needs to learn from its image, which is very strong," said Norquist, who spent his honeymoon in New Orleans. "It's not just the jazz, it's the life. Sophisticated pleasure -- they need to stick with that. That's why the world loves them."

FEMA job open; no experience required

No "blame game," no "quick fix." Wisconsin Republicans toe the party line. Eye On Wisconsin has the story.

John Stocks: Report from Evangeline

From John Stocks, whose efforts to help his family and friends in the Gulf have been reported in earlier posts here, here, here, here, and here.

South to Evangeline-It tried to wash you away

It has been two days since my last report.

Aaron Neville sings a song about the historic flood of New Orleans. It has become the theme song for this tragedy.

South out of Jackson across the Louisiana border. Lovebugs cloud the windshield. Wind damage from the storm is everywhere. A steady flow of trucks hauling generators, piping, welding equipment, water, fuel, and all types of heavy equipment. Now FEMA trucks are hauling fifth wheels and camper trailers for temporary housing.

Adam [John's brother] calls on the road and tells me to head to his in-laws in Zachary, north of Baton Rouge. We will head to Slidell the next day.

EAST FELICIANA PARISH

West to Clinton, Louisiana, a trip back in time to the deep south. The stately courthouse reminds me of the movie, The Diary of Miss Jane Pittman. The little towns are crowded with evacuees from New Orleans. No television crews here. The story of the impact on rural communities will largely go untold.

EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH

Slight damage in Zachary compared to points east. Arrive at Adam's in-laws. Warm welcome. Father retired teacher. Mother still works in law enforcement. Lots of teachers in this family. A sister-in-law stops by to visit. She teaches at Zachary High School across the street. 100 evacuee students from New Orleans enrolled in this rural high school. The teachers and education support professionals in these schools are seeing the human impact first hand. A story not likely to be told unless we tell it.

Roll my sleeping bag out after dinner and crash. Tomorrow we head to Slidell, ground zero.

ST TAMMANY PARISH.

SLIDELL-Ground Zero

The children stay back with their grandparents. Two hours in heavy traffic across I-12 to Slidell. I-10 is closed so all the west-east traffic is going north of Lake Ponchatrain.The devastation multiples as we head east. Military helicopters constantly overhead headed to New Orleans.

We arrive in the city where the eye of the storm passed over. Shops are destroyed. Electricity coming back slowly. The people we encounter are stunned. You can see the pain from the trauma in their eyes. Dazed and despairing, they await to hear about colleagues,friends and family. They gather their faculties to deal with their homes and businesses. Slidell got the brunt of the eye wall winds and a flood surge from Lake Ponchatrain.

We pull into Adam's sub division. The insides of homes are piled on the lawns. A few portable generators whine in the distance. It is time to unload the trailer and get to work.

Pulling sheetrock all day is a miserable job in 95 degree heat with high humidity. Need to get the house dried out before the mold and mildew take over and ruin it.

Adam and Becky are resourceful and determined. They are arranging for insurance adjusters, roofers, contractors, etc. Becky arranges for FEMA to tarp the roof. Got to be done before the next rain.

Neighbors lend each other equipment. Warn each other of the price gougers and con-artists.. People commiserate together.

We sweep up the debris, set up the blower fans and fire up the generator to run all night. We finish the day at 8:30 pm. Load up and drive the two hours back to Zachary. Shower off the dust and grime, lay down and crash. Tomorrow we are back at it.

The generator, fans and dehumidifier will probably prevent any mold problem. Pray we don't get another storm. It's the beginning of the hurricane season.

John Stocks

Blasphemy about New Orleans

A God with Whom I am Not Familiar

A "think piece"that will make you think. It's from a site called The Black Commentator, which describes itself:

The Black Commentator's core audience is African Americans and their allies in the struggle for social and economic justice. It is also important to share Black American perspectives with the rest of the world, a mission uniquely suited to the Internet.

This commentary by Tim Wise is "an open letter to the man sitting behind me at La Paz today, in Nashville, at lunchtime, with the Brooks Brothers shirt."

The language isn't pretty. I don't expect some of the comments from my hardcore wingnut commenters will be either. I don't endorse everything he says, but I can understand why he needs to say it. The people who need to hear it the most never will.

Accountability in Gulf of Mexico;waste, fraud and abuse in Iraq

Now that F. Me Sensenbrenner has made it clear what his three criteria are for appropriations -- accountability, accountability and accountability -- it is safe to assume he won't be voting to spend any more money on the war in Iraq.

The US has spent $200-billion so far in that nation of 26 million people. That's about $7700 per capita, by my estimation, with a lot more to come. Sensenbrenner thought the Karina relief was too much, when it came it at about $8,500 per person. (Using F. Up math, he wrongly calculated it at $119,000 per.)

Not enough accountability, he said, voting no. Fraud, waste and abuse.

Excuse me, but isn't this the same guy who keeps voting for money for the Iraq war. I don't remember his outrage over this report:

Audit: U.S. lost track of $9 billion in Iraq funds
Pentagon, Bremer dispute inspector general's report
Monday, January 31, 2005

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Nearly $9 billion of money spent on Iraqi reconstruction is unaccounted for because of inefficiencies and bad management, according to a watchdog report published Sunday.

An inspector general's report said the U.S.-led administration that ran Iraq until June 2004 is unable to account for the funds.

"Severe inefficiencies and poor management" by the Coalition Provisional Authority has left auditors with no guarantee the money was properly used," the report said.

I don't recall a peep from F. or his defenders. This case was real, not hypothetical.

Why do you suppose that is?

The cheese stands alone --Feingold in Wisconsin tradition

Joel McNally writes in the Shepherd-Express of Sen. Russ Feingold's willingness to stand alone on an issue. Right now it's setting a target date for the US to get out of Iraq, but Feingold was also the only vote against the Patriot Act and in a small minority with the courage to vote against the war in Iraq.

McNally's article is titled, "The Cheese Stands Alone."

The AP also notes, in a national wire story, that Feingold's willingness to be out front could stamp him as the antiwar presidential candidate in 2008.

Feingold is in good company in being willing to stand alone. He holds the Senate seat formerly occupied by Gaylord Nelson, another cheesehead who was not afraid to stand alone in the Senate. His vote against Vietnam war appropriations -- one of three in the Senate -- is well-known. But there were other times, too.

Quoting from one of favorite books, Gaylord Nelson's biography (I know the author intimately):

In May 1975, Nelson stood alone in the Senate to question U.S. military action to free a U.S. cargo ship, the Mayaguez, which had been captured by Cambodia's Khmer Rouge army. President Gerald Ford called it piracy and acted quickly, without consulting Congress, to order military action. The ship and its crew were freed, and reaction from the public and the Congress was nearly unanimous in support of Ford's action. Nelson strongly dissented from the prevailing view.

"What vital national interest was at stake to justify such a precipitate and violent response?" Nelson asked. "Did we need to sacrifice any of the lives of our soldiers, endanger the ship and its crew, and bomb a Cambodian airport in order to settle this dispute? The answer, I think, is no. We did not even bother to give the negotiation process a fair trial. The test of the strength and maturity of a superpower is better measured by its restraint in minor incidents rather than demonstration of the power the world already knows we have at our command. I dissent from the conventional wisdom that tells us we must prove our virility and maintain our credibility by responding with violence wherever and whenever we may be challenged, however minor the insult."

Almost the only other member of Congress to raise questions was Rep. Robert Kastenmeier, the liberal from Madison.

Nelson's stand won him praise from columnists and editorial writers. While the presidential field played it safe, Nelson had the courage to emulate Adlai Stevenson and "talk sense to the American public,"Tom Braden wrote in the Washington Post. Anthony Lewis of the New York Times called Nelson "the outstanding voice of reason and proportion." Braden quoted from some of Nelson's mail: "Go live in Cambodia." "Drop dead, you yellow-bellied traitor." "You are despicable and disgusting." "Let's give America back its pride." The mail was not all from Wisconsin, and it was not all negative or vicious. As time passed, more people wondered about the decision, especially upon learning more details of the operation. Marines who stormed aboard the container ship had found it empty, and Cambodia had sent a message indicating it would return the ship before the raid took place. The crew already had been released before the Marines landed on a nearby island. Forty-one American servicemen lost their lives in the operation, and fifty more were wounded in trying to rescue the thirty-nine crew members who already had been released.

As was often the case, Nelson was ahead of the curve -- which may have its political rewards in hindsight but is a dangerous place to be if running as a mainstream presidential candidate. But Nelson was not a presidential candidate; he was a U. S. Senator from Wisconsin with five years remaining in his term, free to speak his mind. Nor was his stand and statement a calculated effort to get national attention for himself. In fact, he simply responded to news media inquiries about the issue.

Nelson wasn't afraid of a fight, of taking an unpopular stand, of conflict and controversy. His early opposition to the Vietnam war and espousal of an environmental agenda that included banning the internal combustion engine were evidence of that. In 1971, he cast the only Senate vote against a new, widely promoted and heavily lobbied federal Conquest of Cancer agency, causing some cohad votedts to ask why he had voted "in favor of cancer."He was vindicated when his position -- that the cancer fight should remain in the National Institutes of Health, not be waged by an agency reporting directly to the president -- prevailed in the House and in the final bill. . .

He was among a handful of Senators voting against confirmation of Henry Kissinger, Gerald Ford, Nelson Rockefeller, Clement Haynsworth, and other presidential appointees he felt did not measure up. But he wanted to pick his fights, and did not feel obligated to get into every one that came along.

Finally, Truthout lists myths about Iraq policy that Feingold has debunked.

Sensensbrenner town halls Saturdayin Port Washington, West Bend

Found this too late to do much good, but:

Fifth District Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner will hold a Town Hall Meeting for the residents of the Port Washington area on Saturday, September 10th, 2005, at the Port Washington Police Department, starting at 9 a.m.

He also will hold aTown Hall Meeting for the residents of the West Bend area on Saturday,September 10th, at the West Bend City Hall, starting at 3 p.m.

During the first part of the meetings, Congressman Sensenbrenner will respond to questions and comments from residents on federal issues. "This interaction provides me with insight into the views of my constituents which I take back to Washington," Sensenbrenner said. Sensenbrenner has invited area state legislators to join him so they may answer questions on state issues.

During the second half of the meetings he will meet with constituents on a one-on-one basis to assist them with any problems they may be having with federal agencies. The public is invited and Sensenbrenner encourages area residents to attend.

Between the two meetings, Sensenbrenner will be going door-to-door in the district to try to raise $51.8-billion in donations to help hurricane victims. (OK, I made that part up.)

Quote, unquote

"I'm going to go home and walk my dog and hug my wife and, maybe get a good Mexican meal and a stiff margarita and a full night's sleep. And then I'm going to go right back to FEMA and continue to do all I can to help these victims."

--Michael Brown, after being recalled from New Orleans.

"On second thought, Brownie, you are one hell of a screwup'

So FEMA head Mike Brown has been sacked. Not discharged. Just evacuated from the combat zone and out on light duty in the rear, at full pay and benefits.

The Washington Post reports:

In Washington, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced that he has recalled Brown, the embattled director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, from his post as head of federal relief efforts on the ground in the Gulf Coast area and has replaced him with a senior Coast Guard officer.

He said Brown, who has come under heavy criticism for what is widely perceived as a slow and inadequate initial federal response to the disaster, will return to Washington and will remain as head of FEMA. Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen, the Coast Guard's chief of staff, will take over as the chief federal official in charge of Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, Chertoff said. He had named Allen to be Brown's deputy for the New Orleans area on Monday.

Brown said Chertoff told him of the change today at 10 a.m.

Chertoff explained the recall of Brown and his replacement by Allen as dictated by a move to "the next phase of operations" in the hurricane relief effort. He said the FEMA director needs to be in Washington to carry out broader responsibilities, including potentially managing "other kinds of disasters" and dealing with additional hurricanes. He suggested that the change would also meet the need for a "seamless interaction with military forces" in the relief effort.

"Mike Brown has done everything he possibly could to coordinate the federal response to this unprecedented challenge," Chertoff said. The FEMA director "has got a lot of other responsibilities," he said, adding, "We cannot afford to let our guard down. I want to make sure FEMA continues to be run the way it needs to be."

Chertoff refused to answer questions about Brown's possible resignation or reports that the FEMA director embellished his resume.

That's a start. It was overdue. But Brown should be fired. In fact, he never should have been hired in the first place. This New Republic article explains why he was in way over his head at FEMA. He's a fraud -- but a good Republican. (By the way, it's not just Brown who's unqualified. The Washington Post says five of the top eight FEMA people are politically-connected appointees with no relevant experience.)

MIKE BROWN'S PADDED RESUMÉ.
Legal Brief
by Paul Campos

By now, the basic contours of Mike Brown's ascendancy to director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (fema) have come to light. Journalists have uncovered that Brown had almost no relevant experience for the position and got hired by FEMA because he was a longtime friend of George W. Bush's close associate Joe Allbaugh. The story being reported, in other words, is that Brown was a lawyer who ended up with a crucial post in the Bush administration because of rank cronyism.

This is a well-known Washington narrative: hotshot lawyer gets appointed to a high government office despite lacking the expertise someone in the position ought to possess. For example, on September 6, The Washington Post fit the Brown scandal into this narrative in a front-page story, saying that Brown has been "caricatured as the failed head of an Arabian horse sporting group who was plucked from obscurity to become President Bush's point man for the worst natural disaster in U.S. history."

Yet, far from being a caricature, this description, if anything, understates the absurdity of the situation. The real story of Brown's meteoric rise from obscurity is far more disturbing, as well as a good deal more farcical. It's clear that hiring Brown to run FEMA was an act of gross recklessness, given his utter lack of qualifications for the job. What's less clear is the answer to the question of exactly what, given Brown's real biography, he is qualified to do.

To understand the Mike Brown saga, one has to know something about the intricacies of the legal profession, beginning with the status of the law school he attended. Brown's biography on FEMA's website reports that he's a graduate of the Oklahoma City University School of Law. This is not, to put it charitably, a well-known institution. For example, I've been a law professor for the past 15 years and have never heard of it. Of more relevance is the fact that, until 2003, the school was not even a member of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS)--the organization that, along with the American Bar Association, accredits the nation's law schools. Most prospective law students won't even consider applying to a non-aals law school unless they have no other option, because many employers have a policy of not considering graduates of non-aals institutions. So it's fair to say that Brown embarked on his prospective legal career from the bottom of the profession's hierarchy.

So what did Brown, who received his J.D. in 1981, do with his non-aals law degree? In 1985, Brown joined the firm of Long, Ford, Lester & Brown in Enid, Oklahoma. When I spoke to one of its former members, Andrew Lester (the firm no longer exists), he recalled that Brown was with the firm for only "about 18 months." Lester, who is a longtime friend of Brown, believes that Brown spent most of his time in the first few years after law school pursuing his own legal practice and representing the interests of a prominent local family. Lester vigorously defended his friend's overall abilities, as well as his qualifications for the fema directorship, pointing out that fema had dealt with more than 100 federal emergencies during Brown's tenure. In any case, despite the claim of Brown's fema biography that he practiced law for 20 years prior to his 2001 appointment as fema's general counsel, it appears that, by 1987, he had already more or less abandoned his nascent legal career. From 1987 to 1990, Brown's resumé includes being the sacrificial lamb for the Oklahoma Republican Party in a 1988 congressional election, in which he won 27 percent of the vote against the incumbent Democrat, and stints as an assistant city manager and city councilman in Edmond, Oklahoma. (According to FEMA, because of these positions, "Mike Brown has a lot of experience managing people.") By 1991, he had moved to Colorado, where he became commissioner of judges and stewards for the International Arabian Horse Association (IAHA). This position, which never made his FEMA bio, was Brown's full-time job from 1991 to 2001, and it had nothing to do with the practice of law.

Brown's job was to make sure that horse show judges followed the rules, and his enthusiasm for their strict enforcement won him the nickname of "the czar," as well as the enmity of contestants, some of whom sued the Association, as well as Brown himself. According to a September 6 Denver Post article, Brown became embroiled in controversy when allegations were made that, to help pay his legal fees, Brown solicited a nearly $50,000 contribution from an iaha member whose conduct he was supposed to regulate. Lester, who represented Brown in the IAHA's suits, told me that this was a misunderstanding, due in part to the iaha's initial unwillingness to fulfill its contractual obligation to cover Brown's legal costs. "People are focusing on these attacks made against him when he was with the IAHA," Lester says, rather than looking at the work that Brown had actually done at FEMA. Brown resigned from his position in 2001 under pressure, and the IAHA was reorganized as the Arabian Horse Association.

What, then, are we to make of the claim in Brown's fema biography that, prior to joining the Agency, he had spent most of his professional career practicing law in Colorado? Normally, an attorney practicing law in a state for ten years would have left a record of his experience in public documents. But just about the only evidence of Brown's Colorado legal career is the Web page he submitted to Findlaw.com, an Internet site for people seeking legal representation. There, he lists himself as a member of the "International Arabian Horse Association Legal Dept." and claims to be competent to practice law across a dizzying spectrum of specialties--estate planning, family law, employment law for both plaintiffs and defendants, real-estate law, sports law, labor law, and legislative practice. With all this expertise, it's all the more striking that one can't find any other evidence of Brown's legal career in Colorado.

So what legal work did Mike Brown perform before his stunning reversal of fortune? According to his fema biography, "[H]e served as a bar examiner on ethics and professional responsibility for the Oklahoma Supreme Court and as a hearing examiner for the Colorado Supreme Court." Translation: In Oklahoma, he graded answers to bar exam questions, and, in Colorado, he volunteered to serve on the local attorney disciplinary board.

When Brown left the IAHA four years ago, he was, among other things, a failed former lawyer--a man with a 20-year-old degree from a semi-accredited law school who hadn't attempted to practice law in a serious way in nearly 15 years and who had just been forced out of his job in the wake of charges of impropriety. At this point in his life, returning to his long-abandoned legal career would have been very difficult in the competitive Colorado legal market. Yet, within months of leaving the IAHA, he was handed one of the top legal positions in the entire federal government: general counsel for a major federal agency. A year later, he was made its number-two official, and, a year after that, Bush appointed him director of FEMA.

It's bad enough when attorneys are named to government jobs for which their careers, no matter how distinguished, don't qualify them. But Brown wasn't a distinguished lawyer: He was hardly a lawyer at all. When he left the IAHA, he was a 47-year-old with a very thin resumé and no job. Yet he was also what's known in the Mafia as a "connected guy." That such a person could end up in one of the federal government's most important positions tells you all you need to know about how the Bush administration works--or, rather, doesn't.

Paul Campos is a professor of law at the University of Colorado-Boulder.

$51.8-billion in waste, fraud and abuse?

To listen to F. Everyone Sensenbrenner and his defenders, like Owen at Boots and Sabers, you'd think Congress and the President had just air-dropped $51.8-billion in small bills over Louisiana and Mississippi, with no idea what would happen to the money.

Sensenbrenner, on the air with Charlie Sykes (listen here), basically said the money was all going to the Dept. of Waste, Fraud and Abuse.

It's "throwing money at the problem," he said, and a lot will be wasted, pointing to reports of previous mismanagement of money in New Orleans. He talked about "people with sticky fingers siphoning it off."

FEMA, he said "doesn't have a very good track record" of spending taxpayers' money, and local and state governments are "even worse."

So, Sykes asked him, what about people (like me, for example) who say he is uncaring?

"I care that the taxpayers' money is being spent in a prudent manner," he said. He compared his job with being the trustee of a family trust.

So it turns out Sensenbrenner is a caring person. First and foremost, he cares about money.

Heartwarming, isn't it?

---

Just for the record, the "AP says this is where the money will go:

Of the $51.8 billion Katrina aid package, $1.8 billion goes for Pentagon deployments and repairs of levees and navigation projects. The remaining $50 billion is budgeted to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as follows:

- $23.2 billion for housing aid and grants to individuals.

- $11 billion to be passed to other agencies, including the Army Corps of Engineers and the departments of Defense, Health and Human Services and Transportation.

- $7.7 billion to reimburse state and local governments.

- $1.6 billion for 100,000 temporary housing units.

- $4.6 billion for FEMA logistics, search and rescue and emergency supplies.

- $1.3 billion for other needs such as unemployment insurance, damage inspections, counseling and legal aid.

- $650 million for mitigation activities.

© 2005 The Associated Press.

John Stocks: A reunion in Jacksonwith Hurricane Katrina survivors

Today's report from John Stocks, who left Wisconsin Wednesday with a vehicle and trailer loaded with supplies for friends and family who survived Katrina:

My choice of CD's for the road trip was last minute, random and unintentional. Although the messages were profound.

South out of Wisconsin with Bruce's patriotic theme song 'Born in the USA.' A missionary hymnal of sorts for the tasks ahead. Through Memphis listening to Paul Simon's 'Graceland' and on to Jackson with Aretha Franklin singing 'The Weight' and Neil Young's 'Helpless'. Preparation for what was to come.

The US Interstate infrastructure is in serious need of repair particularly in southern Illinois and Missouri. Another indication of the nation's misplaced priorities.

Many displaced people on the road, at the truck stops, in the rest areas, on the highways. Some leaving, some returning, all shocked and dazed. Lots of children with parents and relatives. Some are people of means and others had little and have nothing to go back to and nowhere to go. Race and class matter little to them. The shared experience of the tragedy erases those barriers. Ironically this tragedy has forged a common bond amongst strangers.

THE JACKSON REUNION

I called ahead after numerous attempts to get through. I told them to gather up for dinner. Lois said ' a hot meal....really' I said 'of course, a night on the town'. The Ewell families waited in the motel lobby. I caught Lois' eye when we walked in and we ran to one another and cried. Tears of joy and sadness.

We all piled into two cars with two local heroes and took off for a hot southern meal. I sat with the children. The adults needed a well deserved break. Our local heroes entertained.

The children and I ate roasted peanuts and threw the shells on the floor. We colored the children's menu with our crayons, we completed the word search puzzles, spelled our names and teased each other. They tried to braid my hair but found it too short and too straight. They ate whatever they wanted and I insisted on everyone having dessert. It was a glorious time.

The adults visited with our two local heroes, had cocktails and good food.

Back at the motel we opened up the gifts I brought down from my sister in law and other packages that had arrived from angels of mercy throughout the country. More tears, more sadness, more joy.

Vichaun, the four year old little boy looked up at his grandmother and asked, "Grandma, is it Christmas?" Lois' eyes welled up with tears. She was speechless.

For a few hours, we distracted them from their troubles, let them know they were not going to be forgotten and gave them tremendous hope that things are going to work out on the road ahead. Thanks to all of you who have and are making this happen.

ALL THE FAMILY MEMBERS HAVE BEEN LOCATED

Sterling's family is safe. Wanda (Henrietta's daughter) was rescued from the roof of her flooded home by helicopter and sent to Houston. Percy and his wife are in Hattiesburg; they have gotten an apartment, Debbie Ann and Henrietta are in Atlanta and have been sponsored by a family. They are moving into a house. This close knit family has been split apart across a vast geography. Thank the Great Spirit they are safe.

BIG DECISIONS

Stacy got on a national conference call with her employer, Pan American Life Insurance. Her division is relocating to Dallas. Lois and Eloise don't want to split up the families so they may all go with Stacy. Lois is one year and 5 months from retirement in Louisiana. The weight of the decision to leave Louisiana is enormous. Eloise will go to Dallas to be with her daughter and grandchildren but is worried about whether her retiree HMO will pay for health care in Dallas. Stacy has put in 8 years at Pan American and does not want to start over. These are big decisions for all of them.

ON TO SLIDELL AND BACK TO JACKSON

I leave today with the trailer to Slidell to help my brother and his family with fixing their house. I will try to report tomorrow from there. No guarantees. I expect my energies will be consumed.

My deepest appreciation to you all for your support, prayers and assistance.

Johno

Earlier post and info.

Who does Rep. Sensenbrenner represent? He disgraces Wisconsin

UPDATE: On radio with Charlie Sykes, Sensenbrenner says he does care -- about money. $51.8-billion in waste, fraud and abuse?

---

How do we describe F. James Sensenbrenner?

Heartless? Uncaring? Unfeeling?

Yes, all of those and worse.

Fiscal conservatism is no rationale for his vote against providing disaster relief to victims of the Gulf Coast hurricane.

It goes deeper than that. It has to.

Anyone who has seen the images and read the stories of the plight of the hundreds of thousands -- perhaps a million -- people displaced by the storm must have an empathetic reaction. You can't see the devastation without reacting emotionally, without wanting to help people in need.

I don't know how many times we've cried at our house in the last 10 days. Too many to count.

The sadness at seeing the suffering of fellow human beings is compounded by the sense of powerlessness and helplessness. We want to do something more than write a check.

F. James Sensenbrenner, as a member of Congress, has the opportunity to do something in his official capacity. But he has refused.

I don't know what he has done personally to help victims. I hope he has been generous. He certainly has the means, if he chose, to write a million dollar check. Maybe he and Cheryl are preparing their extra rooms right now to take in some survivors. I hope so.

But it is his role in the House of Representatives that is at issue.

His title is Representative. But who does he represent?

Does his vote represent the people of his district?

Are we to believe that the people of Cedarburg, Whitefish Bay, Shorewood, River Hills, Wauwatosa, West Bend, Mequon, Brown Deer, and other communities in his district wanted him to vote no?

Do you think the people of his district want to turn their backs on the survivors of Katrina?

Of course they don't.

So who is it, exactly, that Representative Sensenbrenner is representing?

It's not the Republican Party. Only 11 Republicans voted against the bill. It's certainly not his leader, President Bush, who asked for the money.

I'm hard-pressed to explain. Any possible answer seems too callous to be true.

Is he representing the super-rich, who stand to benefit from proposed tax cuts that may never happen now because of the cost of Katrina? You'd like to think not, since he is one of the potential beneficiaries of the tax cut.

If and when he explains himself, I suspect we will learn that he is representing some misguided, esoteric principle that only he can understand.

Sensenbrenner doesn't give a tinker's damn about the victims of Katrina, and there is more evidence than a single vote.

Sen. Russ Feingold, some other members of Congress and consumer advocates believe that Katrina victims should get a reprieve from a tough new federal bankruptcy law that is to take effect in mid-October, and Feingold has introduced legislation to do that.

Feingold, the AP reported, said he wants to make sure the new law "does not compound the hardship for thousands of hardworking Americans who simply will not be able to make ends meet as a result of this disaster." The new law makes it harder for debt-ridden Americans to wipe out their obligations through bankruptcy.

Feingold merely wants to let them operate under the old law for the coming year, while they try to get their financial footing and recover from the storm.

Sensenbrenner opposes the change. "The goal of this law was to ensure that all bill-paying Americans, including victims of Hurricane Katrina, don't have to pay the debts of others that can afford to pay," Sensenbrenner's spokesman told Reuters. "The chairman is interested in helping and protecting the Hurricane Katrina victims - they would qualify under the special circumstances exceptions under the bill," he told the AP. But he opposes the Feingold bill.

Sensenbrenner's great gift to Katrina survivors is a bill, passed Wednesday, that allows circuit, district and bankruptcy courts to conduct special sessions outside their geographic boundaries when they cannot meet because of emergency conditions. Very helpful to people who've just lost everything, wouldn't you say?

Who is Representative Sensenbrenner representing? He has chosen to side with the banks, credit card companies, and other special interests instead of the Katrina survivors who desperately need help.

His district is so overwhelmingly Republican he thinks, perhaps correctly, that he can do whatever he pleases and will suffer no consequences.

Perhaps it is time for the people of his district -- the people he purports to represent -- to speak up.

When he acts and votes as he does, he disgraces them and embarrasses Wisconsin. Let's tell him so.

---

Sensenbrenner's lame excuse

Buried in the middle of a story on page 15 of the Journal Sentinel, we find:

In a statement, Sensenbrenner said people affected by Katrina "clearly need help," but he said the spending bill "lacks accountability."

"When you add up the total dollars Congress has spent thus far in response to Hurricane Katrina -- about $62 billion -- and divide it by the number of people in Louisiana and Mississippi," that averages out to $119,000 per inhabitant," Sensenbrenner said.

Actually, dividing the amount of aid by the combined population of the two states -- about 7.3 million -- results in a per-resident figure of roughly $8,500.

"The magnitude of this disaster, and what has been widely regarded as an unsatisfactory response to the effect of Hurricane Katrina, demonstrates a great need for accountability in any spending bill that comes out of Congress," Sensenbrenner said. "Americans throughout the nation should be assured that the money spent by Congress will be spent on the thousands of people from the Gulf Coast who truly require assistance. Since this legislation lacks that accountability, I could not in good conscience vote for it."

Sensenbrenner made no attempt to amend or improve the bill, but simply voted no. It passed the House 410-11 and the Senate 97-0.

Pro-Lautenschlager Democratic jury picked

I erred recently when discussing the upcoming trial of Chai Vang, charged with shooting six deer hunters. The trial will be in Sawyer County, but the jurors will be from Dane County.

That makes the question I posed even more relevant.

Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager is prosecuting the case herself. Lautenschlager, a Democrat, got 68% of the vote in Dane County in 2002. So the odds are that two-thirds of those jurors voted for her.

What kind of justice is that? How can Vang get a fair trial when the jurors are all Democrats who voted for the prosecutor?

Right now you are probably asking yourself: "Is Xoff nuts? (The jury is still out on that.) What's he talking about?"

That argument I just made is the same one State Rep. Scott Jensen (R-Not Convicted Yet) made last week to try to get a change of venue from Dane County for his political corruption trial.Earlier post.

Most people in Dane County are Democrats and voted for the DA who will prosecute the case, Jensen's lawyer said, so he couldn't get a fair trial there. The judge hasn't ruled on that yet, but if he rules in Jensen's favor it will turn the state's legal system on its head.

Quote, unquote

Friday, showing up on the fifth day of a national tragedy, Bush made a little humorous aside about the times he was in New Orleans celebrating too much. Beautiful! If he tried to walk fifty yards he could have tripped over somebody's dead black grandmother under a blanket.

How do you like it? How do you like having a president who at a time like this reminisces about getting drunk in New Orleans? White boy with Daddy's money roaring at Mardi Gras in a town black for the rest of the year.

-- Jimmy Breslin, in a Newsday column. He's back and in fine form.

Sensenbrenner votes no on relieffor victims of Hurricane Katrina

Wisconsin Rep. F. Everybody Sensenbrenner voted "no" this afternoon as the House approved $51.8-billion in aid for victims of Katrina, requested by President Bush.

The vote was 410-11 Roll call.

No details yet on whether Sensenbrenner explained his vote -- although it is hard to imagine what explanation would be acceptable. Maybe he wants to save some of that money for tax cuts for multi-millionaires like himself.

He'll more likely come up with some legal mumbo-jumbo and voodoo economics rather than say he just doesn't give a damn about poor people.

(He could just say it: "The poor are depressing to be around, and they don't dress nicely. Some of those evacuees don't even smell very good. And it is hard to carry on any kind of intellectual conversation with most of them. They don't even know what I mean when I say bootstraps.")

There's already quite a discussion going on about the Negative Eleven over at DailyKos.

The Washington Post explains the bill and its consequences:

The White House request, which Congress is likely to approve today, includes $50 billion for FEMA's disaster response fund, $1.4 billion for the Defense Department, largely for personnel costs and damage to facilities in the Gulf region, and $400 million for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to repair locks, reconstruct channels in the Louisiana bayou and dredge waterways rendered impassable.

That request came on top of a $10.5 billion relief package approved by Congress last week. The escalating cost prompted Republican leaders to delay consideration of two packages of spending and tax cuts, which under statute are supposed to be completed by month's end. The packages would have led to cuts in the growth of entitlement programs largely for the poor, such as Medicaid and food stamps, coupled with an extension of cuts to the tax rate on capital gains and stock dividends, which benefit rich investors.

The disaster has forced the Republicans to temporarily set aside a planned fall agenda of tax relief, spending cuts and retirement savings initiatives, as well as to react to public outrage over the government's slow response to the crisis. The joint inquiry, launched by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) a day after the White House announced its own investigation, will wield subpoena power and is billed as a bipartisan enterprise, although Republicans will dominate the committee. It will be the first joint investigation since the Iran-contra probe of the 1980s.

Quote, unquote

“A rightwing government that strangles public expenditures for public works is largely responsible for what happened in New Orleans."

-- Paul Soglin, former mayor of Madison, and past chair of the committee on urban economics for the National Conference of Mayors.

Source: The Progressive.

Feingold asks TV networks to give airtime to unite hurricane survivors

Here's an idea from Sen. Russ Feingold: Maybe the TV networks could do actually provide a public service, in an organized way, to try to help hurricane victims find their loved ones.

We've seen people on camera with Larry King or reporters on the scene, asking their families to contact them. But is is very haphazard, hit and miss.

If the networks would take a two-hour time out from finger-pointing, spin, politics, and punditry -- or from "reality" programming-- it could do some real good.

From Feingold:

Washington, D.C. --In a letter to the five major news networks (ABC,CBS, CNN, FOX, NBC), US Senator Russ Feingold today asked each of them to provide airtime to the survivors of Hurricane Katrina who are spread out across the country in relief staging areas.

“Like all Americans, my thoughts are with those struggling to cope with the terrible effects of Hurricane Katrina. The devastation brought by the storm is absolutely heart-wrenching and beyond description,” Feingold's letter read. “As your news coverage has shown, one of the many struggles that the survivors of Hurricane Katrina face today is their separation from family and loved ones.”

In the letter, Feingold said that while there have been many success stories of families being brought back together by the news media and others after being displaced by the hurricane, many survivors “still carry the heavy burden of not knowing the whereabouts of loved ones, especially children.”

While there have been efforts by reporters, through the internet, to connect Hurricane survivors “the effort to bring families back together might be well served by having the news networks dedicate a substantial block of air-time... so that those survivors who are in search of loved ones could both let their voice be heard and tune in to a particular network at a specific time to connect with family members through telephone hotlines at the various staging areas.”

“Using the power of our television airwaves could go a long way in helping to bring families back together after this tragedy. It would also ease the enormous anxiety and pain many must feel not knowing the condition of their loved ones,” Feingold said, “This could do a great deal to restore hope to those who have lost so much in this national tragedy.”

John Stocks: On the road to the Gulf

The latest from John Stocks of McFarland, who's been keeping us posted on efforts to help friends and family in the Gulf region. He left Wednesday with a vehicle and trailer full of supplies, en route to Jackson, Miss, and Slidell,La.

It has been two days since my last report. It is early Thursday morning in Mount Vernon (southern Illinois). The relief effort has begun in earnest. Commercial and military trucks full of heavy equipment, piping of all sizes, pumps, food, water and shelters are streaming down I-57 toward the Gulf Coast.

MOST FAMILY MEMBERS FOUND

Percy Ewell, his son Randall and his wife and Henrietta's daughter Wanda have all been located. They are in shelters in Hattiesburg, San Antonio and Houston. Sisters Debbie Ann and Henrietta are in Atlanta. We are still waiting to hear from Henrietta's son Sterling and his wife.

MIRACLE OF THE WEB

My friend Bill Christofferson writes a blog on www.WisOpinion.com. He posted the plight of the Ewell family. It turns out that a dear friend of Lois Ewell Phipps was searching franticallly for her family and punched her name into the Google search engine. Behold, Lois' name came up in Bill's web blog. The women emailed Bill and Bill put her in contact with me and in turn I put her in contact with Lois. Here is one of her emails to Bill.

I am trying to get in touch with the Ewell's they all know me. My nameis Gail Lang Anderson and I'm known as Lois's "white daughter" I am in TX now but live in Covington, LA and will have power in about a week. Everyone of them can come to my house when I get back home. I can't get through to the hotel because of phone issues.

Gail has since connected. A bright light in the Ewell familes' ordeal. The Milwaukee-Google-Texas-Mississippi Connection.

THE ROAD SOUTH

My Green Bay brother in laws came through with a large covered trailer, large drying fans, a dehumidifier and other equipment for drying out my brothers' house in order to prevent mold and mildew after the flood. It will take me another day to get to Jackson and then another half day to Slidell. I will be in Jackson late this afternoon.

MIRACLE OF MONEY AND BANK WIRE TRANSFERS

Many contributions have come in through the generosity of so many of you. This allowed us to wire money to the Ewells at the Comfort Inn yesterday.

MIRACLE OF THE EMAIL NETWORK OF FAMILY, COLLEAGUES AND FRIENDS

After emailing some family, a few colleagues and some friends, there have been many offers of money, clothes, and many other forms of assistance to the plight of the Ewell's, my brother's family, my father and his wife. To all of you we are immensely grateful.

MIRACLE OF THE TREO

None of what we have accomplished so far would have been possible without my handheld TREO. We are grateful to the NEA for the use of this equipment.

MY BROTHER'S FAMILY

It would be hard to know if my brother was under any stress but I know he is under a lot. He, his wife and three children are scrambling to repair their home which flooded during the storm. Adam has removed out all the carpet, sheetrock and furniture that was damaged in the flood. The home appears to be ok structurally. He is working seven days a week trying to bring Charter Communications back online in Louisiana. Becky shuttles the children between her parents in Gonzales, La and their torn apart home in Slidell. Almost a two hour drive. Gas prices are outrageous.

Thank the Great Spirit, the insurance adjuster showed up yesterday.

FATHER AND HIS WIFE ARE SETTLING IN.

My father and his wife are settling in[With John and his family in McFarland.] We all know it will be a while before they can return to their home in New Orleans. They have arranged for their medicines and will registered with FEMA. Loss of income is a growing challenge. They have secured an internet connection and are gathering information through the web. The three dogs and two cats are a bit disoriented but very well behaved.

THE MCFARLAND FAMILIES

Please distribute this out to the growing networks of family, colleagues, friends and blessed strangers that have been contacted and offered help to our family. We can't keep track of them all but we are eternally grateful. We keep reminding ourselves that this is a marathon, not a sprint.

John Stocks

---

Regarding the "marathon not a sprint" comment: So far, people have contributed and written checks directly to John Stocks, who has promised to account for all of the expenses and provide information to donors. I spoke to him last night as he drove through southern Illinois, and we agreed to look for a non-profit, tax exempt organization that would handle contributions. That would allow people to take tax deductions and, in many cases, qualify them for matching contributions from their employers. More on that as it develops. Hope to have something soon.

If that doesn't matter to you and you want to give now, send a check, payable to John Stocks, 5608 Chestnut Lane, McFarland, WI 53558.

Has Katrina saved US media?

-- Cartoon by Stuart Carlson, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

While self-styled media critics on the right decry Katrina coverage by the media as unfair to the Bushies and Brownies of the world, a BBC writer asks whether Katrina might actually have saved the U.S. media by waking up the comfortable old lapdog.

Jessica McBride, who's been especially tough on the media, has a new reader.

Katrina coverup from Congress?

What kind of an investigation can we expect on Katrina? Not much of one, according to The Note from the political unit at ABC News:

Congressional Republicans have decided (for now) that their political interests (as in 2002 and 2004) lie in solidarity with the Bush Administration. "We shall all hang together" is the unofficial mantra, and the clearest manifestation of that is the decision to produce a congressional investigation process that is precisely what the White House wanted, in terms of timing, focus, and the make up of the committee. As of now, the investigation is likely to be as tough as any other that this Congress has done of the Bush Administration (which is to say: not very, or at all), and Democrats have no leverage to change that.

The poor families of the Gulf Coast are not as potent a force in Washington as the 9/11 families, and thus won't be able to force an independent review. That means a serious look — with the subpoena power the media lacks — of pre-Katrina FEMA funding and actions and other Administration vulnerabilities will likely not happen, and certainly not anytime soon.

Unlikely help finally plugs a giant loophole in state campaign finance law

Finally, the biggest loophole in Wisconsin's campaign finance law has been closed, with some help from an unlikely source.

The loophole -- that is hardly an adequate word to describe the gaping hole in the law -- allowed members of Congress to use money from their federal campaign accounts to run for state office.

More to the point, it allowed members of Congress to amass hundreds of thousands of dollars from special interest committees -- money that would be illegal under state law -- and use it for a state race.

Rep. Mark Green was the latest to take advantage of it, transferring $1.3-million from his Congressional campaign account to his governor's campaign. That included, depending upon whose calculation you use, at least $500,000 and perhaps as much as $800,000 in laundered special interest money. That's money that Scott Walker, Green's opponent, could not accept even if he could raise it.

Of course, there would be no reason for those federal PACs to give to Walker. They gave to Green not because they wanted to help him run for governor, but because they wanted him to vote their way on bills in the House.

Green's not the first to do it -- Tom Barrett did the same thing in 2002 on the Democratic sides -- but it looks like he will be the last.

On a tie vote, a legislative committee Wednesday failed to overturn an Elections Board rule that will prohibit such transfers. Now, candidates can transfer a maximum of $43,100 -- the same amount a state political action committee can contribute to a statewide campaign.

Republicans, for some reason, wanted to overturn the rule. But State Sen. Tom Reynolds, a free-thinking Republican wingnut, voted with the Dems and produced a 5-5 tie, which means the rule stands.

It is already illegal, by the way, to raise money in a state campaign account and use it to run for a federal office. Now the law is the same in both directions.

If Rep. Paul Ryan had any plans to use his current $1.3-million balance to run for governor in the future, he'll have to rethink. But if the Senate is his eventual goal, he can keep right on banking that money until the day that opportunity knocks. On the Democratic side, Rep. Ron Kind, who is sometimes mentioned as a candidate for governor or AG, has $369,000 in the bank.

Journal Sentinel story.

AG candidate Bucher screws up campaign finance case, says he is 'still confused'

Let's hope Paul Bucher has a campaign treasurer who knows the campaign finance laws better than he does.

How embarrassing is this?

The Journal Sentinel reports that Bucher -- the Waukesha DA who wants to be the state AG -- completely blew an opinion on whether the mayor of Brookfield had received contributions that were over the limits.

No problem, Bucher said in February. The mayor's contributions were fine.

But a reporter was still asking questions, so last month Bucher asked the State Elections Board to review the mayor's campaign finances. (If you read the story, you'll find he was more than a little testy about the media, too.)

Bucher said he asked the Elections Board to avoid any perception that he had a conflict of interest, because he and Mayor Jeff Speaker are using the same fund-raiser.

The State Elections Board said Bucher was dead wrong.

Bucher said in February that there was no violation because the campaign period for donations ended on election day, and anything given after that counted for the next campaign. The law says just the opposite -- that any money given before June 30 counts toward the April election. The reason is obvious. A donor could give the maximum the day before the election and do it again the day after, if you follow Bucher's logic.

"I still am confused, to be perfectly honest with you," Bucher said Tuesday, adding that he made his decision in February after reading the state campaign finances law.

He'd better read it again, especially if he's planning to use the Bucher rule in his own fund-raising for attorney general.

Gay marriage and the Governator

California's legislature has passed a gay marriage bill, but the AP reports that the Governator may veto it.

Schwarzenegger is trying to have it both ways, saying he supports gay marriage but thinks the voters or the courts -- basically anyone but the legislature and the governor -- should decide.

We'll see if his veto message says anything about girlie men.

Word for the day: Flack

[SEE UPDATE BELOW. SYKES STILL DOESN'T GET IT.]

Dear Dr. Xoff:

I've noticed that some radio talk show types have trouble when they have to write down the words they say on the air. For example, there's this guy on WTMJ who likes to call people "flacks" when he disagrees with them.

A flack, as I understand it, is like a press agent for someone, like when Charlie Sykes was a flack for Milwaukee County Executive Dave Schulz. He was a paid flack then. Now he flacks for County Executive Scott Walker and other Republicans, but that's either volunteer or in-kind, I think.

But when he writes about you on his blog, he says you are a "flak" for Doyle and Norquist.

What is that about? Isn't flak anti-aircraft fire? Have you been trying to shoot those guys down or something?

Please help. I am

Confused in Cudahy

---

Dear Confused:

That makes two of us.

Dr. X

---

UPDATE: Sykes still gets it wrong. He writes:

SOMEBODY OUGHT TO LOOK AT THAT THIN SKIN, DR. XOFF

How bad is it? Xoff has started talking to himself. Worse, he's answering back.

Dr. Xoff wonders about my use of the word "flak" to describe him. He is apparently confusing the word "hack," (an understandable mistake in this context), in thinking that I mean to call Xoff a "flack."

Dr. Xoff has apparently never heard of Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers by Tom Wolfe. Xoff should be flattered, since he's one of the top flak-catchers around (you do remember your stint with John Norquist circa 2000, surely?)

Thus the term "flak." Glad to be able to clear that up

---

So a Sykes' Google search turned up Tom Wolfe. A flak-catcher is someone who catches flak. Flak -- the incoming fire -- is what the person catches. And a flak jacket is what you wear to protect yourself from shrapnel.

So call me a flak catcher, call me a flak jacket, call me a flapjack, call me a flack.

But don't call me an anti-aircraft gun or shell. That's a flak.

(I'm sure Sykes will find a source that says you can use flack and flak interchangeably. But there is a difference. Someone who relies on language for a living ought to know it.)

Maybe we should ask Bill Safire to referee. When he retired from the New York Times, he said:
... "I was looked at [by some Times staffers] as a Nixon flack when I came to the paper..."

Charmaine Neville: Survivor's story

Charmaine Neville, right, of New Orleans' leading musical family, tells an amazing story of her experiences in the city's 9th Ward during and after Katrina.

It's a 9-minute video, and it is upsetting to watch, but offers a taste of reality.

This from Crooks and Liars:

Charmaine Neville

A survivor's story. click here for the video

This is chilling.... Charmaine Neville: New Orleans Evacuee

Charmaine is the daughter of Charles Neville and performs with her own band. She played at the Third Ward jazz night in Milwaukee a few years ago.

Milwaukee Sheriff Clarke comes out as a Republican

For months, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke (right) has flirted with the Republican Party. Now it looks like he has finally taken the leap.

Three months ago, he wrote a treatise entitled, "How One Becomes A Republican," but carefully avoided saying that he had become one himself. We asked then,"So Sheriff Clarke, Just What Are You Today?" No answer.

Before that, he had complained that the Democratic Party hadn't welcomed him as its new Zell Miller, although he had never taken any step to join the party or support its principles. He even played the race card. Maybe the Democrats didn't welcome him because he's a black conservative, he said. We politely disagreed, saying "David Clarke is No Zell Miller, But It's Not Because He's Black."

Clarke's hesitation to make it official is that he ran and was elected sheriff as a Democrat in 2002, and will be up for reelection in 2006. Milwaukee County is heavily Democratic; Republicans field only token candidates for partisan county offices in most cases.

So he wants to keep his options open.

It's surprising, then, that he has answered his own question about how one becomes a Republican.

One way would be to join the National Black Republican Association, a new group that proudly lists Sheriff Clarke on its website as one of its members. What's the group, just formed last month, all about? UPDATE: Clarke's name mysteriously disappeared from the website after this was posted, but here's the original page.

The mission of the National Black Republican Association (NBRA) is to be a resource for the black community on Republican ideals and to support the principles of the Republican Party. The NBRA aims to increase the number of black Americans who vote for Republicans, and are active in the Republican Party, by providing information, networking opportunities and resources for black Republicans nationwide.

The National Black Republican Federation, the NBRA’s affiliated Section 527 organization, will identify prospective black Republican candidates for elected office and provide those candidates with financial and grassroots assistance.

If Clarke's going to run for reelection as a Republican, he's going to need all the help that 527 can offer.

The website displays prominent black Republicans, living and dead, including many you would expect and at least one -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. -- that you wouldn't. Dr. King would no doubt be quite surprised to find himself pictured. The site says he registered as a Republican in 1956. That could be true (or not), but if it is that would have been a temporary abberation. By 1964, he said he "had no alternative but to urge every Negro and white person of goodwill to vote against Goldwater and to withdraw support from any Republican candidate that did not publicly disassociate himself from Senator Goldwater and his philosophy."

That certainly doesn't put him in the same league as Clarence Thomas, who's also pictured.

David Clarke, on the other hand, will fit right in.

Olsen, Wal-Mart recall target,didn't violate open meetings law: DA

From the Daily Jefferson County Union:

Olsen didn't violate law: D.A.

JEFFERSON — A Walworth County assistant district attorney has found that Jefferson Alderman David Olsen did not violate the open meetings law, as alleged in two complaints filed in June.

Olsen is facing a recall election on Sept. 27 sought by a petition authored by Charlotte Goers-Nevin and her sister, Cheryl Higgins, and their group, “Coalition for the Best Jefferson.”

The recall petition listed an alleged violation of the open meetings law and failure to “act in the best interest of Jefferson” as the reasons for the recall. During a special meeting on Aug. 18, the Jefferson Common Council certified petitions and then set the election for Sept. 27.

Olsen was targeted for recall after voting against an annexation that would have cleared the way for a new Wal-Mart superstore. Earlier post with details.

The Milwaukee-Google connection linksKatrina survivors in Texas, Mississippi

A week after Katrina, a glimmer of good news and a reminder about how small the world really is in this Google age.

Through this blog, written in Milwaukee, Louisiana storm survivors relocated to Mississippi and Texas have found one another.

Over the last few days, I have been telling people about the efforts of John Stocks, a Wisconsin friend with Gulf Coast roots, to help a New Orleans family forced from their homes and living in a Jackson, Miss. motel, nine people in a single room.

They are the family of Linda Ewell, by whom Stocks says he was "raised in significant measure. She was there the day I was born and she walked me out the door to college. She passed earlier this year. Her family has always been close to me. "

I've shared his progress reports and relayed information on how people could help. Stocks is planning a trip south on Wednesday to help them and his brother in Slidell, La.

Today, via this blog, I received a comment from Gail Lane Anderson, who said she had been trying unsuccessfully to locate that family. One of Linda Ewell's daughters, Lois, was Gail's ninth grade teacher more than 20 years ago, took Gail under her wing, and they have remained close ever since.

Gail Anderson lives in Covington, La. but her family is currently displaced to Longview, Tex. Their 19 family members left before the storm. She said she had been "worried sick" about the Ewell family and had not been able to get any information about them. She thought they might be in a shelter somewhere, but had no way to find out.

Tuesday morning, she decided to try Google, typed in a search for "Lois Ewell" and found a link to the Xoff Files.

Gail and Lois have spoken on the telephone, and Gail has invited the Ewell family to move into her home in Covington when it is ready to be reoccupied, probably in a week or two. Damage there was more from wind than water, she said, and they are mostly waiting for the electricity to come back on. (There is a little matter of a tree that fell on the house, but she says it did not do serious damage.) Her husband is already in Covington working on repairs.

Gail e-mails:

I've been searching for them since the storm hit and they weren't registered with the Red Cross. I decided to just punch in their names to Google and that's how I found you. Once I can get back home I told them they can stay with me. Hopefully it shouldn't be longer than another week. Lois and I have been close for over 20 years. I just hung up with her, they found her brother Percy in a shelter in Hattiesburg, MS. The rest of the family is in Atlanta, GA. I told her once we get settled into my home we'll figure out how to get to the other ones. Thanks for the postings I was really worried about them. Her spirits are down but I told her material things are just that and the fact that everyone is alive is all she needs to concentrate on for now. I will work to help her find a job in the school system and we'll make do until we find something else out.

There's another dimension to the story that I am hesitant to mention, but given all of the focus on race in the past week, perhaps it is noteworthy that these friendships transcend racial lines. Stocks is white; the Ewells are black; Gail Anderson, who is white, says she calls Lois Ewell "Mom" and is known as "Lois's white daughter."

The family still needs help. More information here and here.

Will Gard move home to run for Congress?

The AppletonPost-Crescent reports:

MADISON — Assembly Speaker John Gard, R-Peshtigo, is expected to officially announce his bid for the 8th Congressional District today.

Gard, 42, planned to announce his run on the dairy farm he grew up on in Lena.

“I wanted to kick it off where I started,” said Gard, who joins a field of candidates for the seat being vacated by Mark Green, R-Hobart, who is running for governor.

Presumably, going back to where he started also means moving his family from Sun Prairie, just outside of Madison, where they've been living and where their kids have been enrolled in school -- while Gard has continued to collect the full $88 per diem for every day he is in Madison. (Dane County residents get half that.)

Gard's Assembly district is in Shawano, Marinette and Oconto Counties, and his "voting address" has been in Peshtigo. But it's an open secret that he's been living in Dane County for years. Voters didn't seem to care; they liked having the powerful Speaker as their representative. But if he wins this seat, he'll be low on the Congressional totem pole, so that argument is gone for this race.

State law 'protects' us from lower gas prices

Many Republicans and at least some Democrats in the legislature are on board. Gov. Jim Doyle has been for repeal for about 30 years, since he was a district attorney.

Can't we just repeal the minimum markup law, which just adds insult to injury and costs Wisconsin drivers more at the gas pump?

There will never be a better opportunity. (Although it did get as far as Gov. Scott McCallum's desk as part of the state budget, but he caved and vetoed it.)

The law was well-intentioned when it was passed in the 1930s. The idea was to keep the big oil companies from cutting prices to drive small, independent stations out of business, then jack prices back up later when they had killed off the competition.

It was supposed to protect consumers. But these days, it protects consumers from lower prices.

As gasoline prices climb, the mandatory markup -- 6 percent over the wholesale price or 9.18 percent over the terminal price -- also increases, adding even more to the cost.

So if the cost to wholesalers goes up 30 cents a gallon, the cost to consumers will go up 33 cents (they always round up,you may have noticed.) The gas stations haven't done any more work to earn the additional money. They're just along for the ride. The higher gas prices go, the more money they are guaranteed to make.

One gas station owner in Manitowoc says he's making 19 cents a gallon and feels like he's gouging people but the law won't let him stop. Story.

Even a two cents per gallon drop in gasoline prices would save Wisconsin drivers something on the order of $50-million a year.

The petroleum industry and gas station owners disagree, of course. They claim the current law saves drivers money. That seems like a hard sell anytime, and especially right now. If drivers save $50-million a year, where's it coming from? You got it -- the extra markup the wholesalers and gas stations take.

Some Democrats and the Capital Times have bought the argument that this law somehow keeps the big bad monopolies from swallowing up the little independents and mom and pop stations. They want to be for the little guy. That's commendable; so do I. But the little guy is the one filling up his tank. Small, independent stations are gone, despite the law. And there are enough other laws on the books to prevent predatory pricing, which is still against the law.

The minimum markup law should go now -- the sooner the better. The bill is scheduled for a committee vote on Sept. 13 and should get on the fast track for approval.

We'll get along just fine without a law that makes sure gas prices aren't too low.

Doyle explains the problem:

"I remember when I was district attorney in Dane County and I was called upon by the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to prosecute people," Doyle said. "In those days, the minimum markup extended to almost all products and they did all this work. Then they wanted me to prosecute these people for charging too little for a good. And I said, ‘Do you really want me to go in front of 12 jurors and try to convict somebody for charging them less?’"

Quote, unquote

'What I’m hearing is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."

-- Barbara Bush, in a radio interview, reported by Editor and Publisher.

I'm told that quote was actually sanitized. What she said on the tape about New Orleans' newly destitute is: "What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is that they want to stay" in Texas. Link.

Helping victims locally -- progress report

Here are clothing sizes for an extended family of 23 Katrina survivors who have ended up in Milwaukee. How long they will be here is unknown, but, like most people, they left their homes expecting to be gone only a short time and took very little with them. If you want to help with money, food, or other needs, donations can be made to: Nathan and Lettye Albert, 2029 N. 5th St., Milwaukee, WI 53212. Phone: 414/ 263-3643. They are the ones providing for the family. Percy Dorsey has offered to pick up and deliver items in Milwaukee, and his phone number is 414/221-9737.

---

This from John Stocks, who has been working to help a family of 9 living in a single motel room in Jackson, Miss., and his brother's family in Slidell, La. This morning's report:

Yesterday was exhausting and I fell asleep before I could write down my experiences from the day.

It was a bittersweet day. We made progress on the little things in life that we often take for granted. Things like food, electricity, hot water, decent shelter, gasoline, telephone service, etc.

JACKSON, MS-The Ewell Families

Angels of mercy kicked into high gear today.

After a full day of aggressive advocacy and the generosity of the local utility company, we were able to secure a second hotel room right across the hall at the Comfort Inn. Thank the great spirit for small victories.

Arrangements were made for the Ewell families to purchase personal items and essentials at Target. These two events made all the difference in their spirits.

We identified an apartment for them to look at that has three bedrooms, two baths and is @ 1300 square feet.

Today, we expect the arrival of packages of clothing at the hotel. We have arranged to wire money we have collected so they can find more permanent housing in Jackson. We will contact Stacy and Jerald's employer to let them know they are alive. We will register the families with the Red Cross.

We still have not heard from Percy, Randall and his family, Sterling and his family, or Wanda. They all refused to evacuate the city. This weighs very heavily on the amilies. Pray for them.

Tomorrow morning I leave for Jackson and Slidell to assist the Ewells and my brother.

SLIDELL, LA

Slidell was ground zero for Hurricane Katrina. There is not much left of the community.

The furniture, carpet, sheetrock and insulation are torn out of the my brother's
house. Now comes the monumental task of drying out what's left and rebuilding.

We found a 'fifth wheel' for my brother and his family to live in while they rebuild their home. Still no electricity so I am purchasing a generator this morning. Gasoline was acquired.

For Adam and Becky the big issue is time.... to work on the house.

Adam has been informed that he is on a seven day work week beginning today for Charter Communications in order to assist employees and get their systems up and running.

School officials say that October 1 is the absolute earliest for schools to open in Slidell so they are shuttling their children to Becky's parents in Baton Rouge so Becky can work on the house.

I will go to give a helping hand.

Priorities for the day: Wire the money, service the van, buy the generator, pick up the trailer, purchase supplies, secure 501c3 to administer future donations, check in on all the families.

I cry when I think of all the support I have received from colleagues, dear friends and family. This is really hard stuff. You angels of mercy have made a big difference. I will never forget it.

May the Great Spirit bless you.

John Stocks

Earlier post with details on how to help.

Let us now praise famous men -- But let's not canonize Rehnquist

UPDATE: Charlie Sykes, apparently still smarting from being exposed for posting tasteless jokes during the early days of Katrina, says this post on Rehnquist violates some rule about telling the truth about the dead.

---

The late Chief Justice William Rehnquist is being eulogized by conservatives and liberals alike.

He deserves recognition for his long tenure and contributions to the American judicial system. But before he is canonized, a little history seems in order.

He was a Wisconsin native, but when President Richard Nixon nominated Rehnquist, Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson opposed him for the Supreme Court. These days, home-state ties seem to trump everything, but Nelson was more interested in Rehnquist's record than his roots.

Nelson opposed confirmation based primarily on Rehnquist's record on civil liberties. As an assistant attorney general, Rehnquist had put government expediency ahead of the Bill of Rights, Nelson said. Rehnquist had defended and supported warrantless wiretaps, preventive detention of suspects without trial, no-knock entry into private property, mass arrests, use of illegally obtained evidence against an accused, and widespread surveillance of people not engaged in illegal activity.

In fact, The Guardian reminds us in its obituary:

In circumstances that never became clear, [Rehnquist] had, [as a clerk to Justice Rovert Jackson] in 1953, written a background paper dealing with a landmark case then before the court, Brown v the Board of Education, which eventually overturned the segregated education of white and black children.

Rehnquist's memorandum strongly supported the stance taken by the court in 1896, that established the principle of "separate but equal" facilities for whites and blacks. "It is about time," Rehnquist wrote, "the court faced the fact that the white people in the south don't like coloured people; the constitution restrains them from effecting this dislike through state action, but it most assuredly did not appoint the court as a sociological watchdog ..."

Time magazine elaborates:

His stint with Justice Jackson became the focus of some scrutiny during Rehnquist's 1971 Senate confirmation process. After the confirmation hearings ended but before the full Senate voted, Newsweek printed excerpts from a memo Rehnquist had written for Jackson in 1952. The memo was titled "A Random Thought on the Segregation Cases," one of which was Brown v. Board of Education, the school-integration case then before the court. The memo noted that "it was not part of the judicial function to thwart public opinion except in extreme cases." And segregation, Rehnquist declared, "quite clearly is not one of those extreme cases ... I realize that it is an unpopular and unhumanitarian position, for which I have been excoriated by 'liberal' colleag[u]es, but I think Plessy v. Ferguson was right and should be re-affirmed." Plessy was the infamous 1896 ruling allowing "separate but equal" accommodations for blacks and whites.

After the memo emerged, Rehnquist drafted a letter to a Senate ally in which he claimed that Jackson, by then deceased, had requested the memo "as a rough draft of a statement of his views." When contacted by a reporter, Jackson's former secretary denied that her boss ever supported Plessy; later, Jackson scholar Dennis Hutchinson of the University of Chicago told the New York Times that the Justice never asked his clerks to summarize his views. "An absurd explanation," Hutchinson said. In 2001, after his own political leanings had tacked left, former Nixon aide Dean ended his book on Rehnquist with two words: "Rehnquist lied."

Although some Senators reached the same conclusion in 1971, the Senate had rejected two other Nixon Supreme Court nominees in the past two years, and it had a weak stomach for further battle. Rehnquist won his confirmation vote 68-26.

The Guardian continues:

In part this resistance [to Rehnquist's appoiontment] stemmed from the political record Rehnquist amassed after he moved to work for a legal practice in Arizona. There he became heavily involved in Republican politics, attaching himself firmly to the ultra-conservative Senator Barry Goldwater and battling vigorously against such local social proposals as racially integrated schools.

One of Rehnquist's close associates there was Richard Kleindienst, who became President Nixon's assistant attorney general and was later convicted for contempt of Congress in the Watergate scandal. Kleindienst recruited Rehnquist into the administration's office of legal counsel, where he gained a fearsome reputation as the department's most ardent advocate of wire-tapping, government surveillance and preventive detention. He also compiled a constitutional amendment (subsequently abandoned) to outlaw school bussing (mandated by federal courts to speed up desegregation).

Rehnquist's close involvement with Nixon's measures to deter anti-Vietnam war demonstrations also caused him problems when he joined the supreme court. At the justice department he had backed the army's intimidating surveillance of protesters and had publicly decried the legal action that civil liberty groups had launched against the practice.

By the time the case reached the supreme court in 1972, Rehnquist was sitting on the bench and refused to withdraw from the case. When the court ruled against the protesters by 5-4 - in other words by Rehnquist's casting vote - there was another uproar. The New York Times attacked him for impropriety and 110 law professors signed a letter accusing him of unethical behaviour. It was water off a duck's back: as the years went by, a succession of supreme court judgments emerged which had been signed by all the justices except Rehnquist. As these 8-1 decisions mounted, Rehnquist became known to the more irreverent court clerks as the Lone Ranger.

Back to Gaylord Nelson.

Rehnquist was "an able lawyer, a man both of deeply held convictions and personal integrity," Nelson said, but that was not enough. "On the question of the guarantee of individual rights in the first ten amendments to the Constitution, I am a strict constructionist," Nelson said in a Senate speech. "The Bill of Rights was specifically adopted to protect individual liberties against oppression and the excesses of governmental power. Mr. Rehnquist's interpretations of these guarantees are at such variance with my own that I am unable to support his nomination."

Rehnquist. of course, was confirmed and joined the court in January 1972.

The rest, as they say, is history, and both Rehnquist and Nelson are gone. But the record remains.

---

ANOTHER VIEW: The Real Rehnquist, by David Corn, Washington editor of The Nation.

Quote, unquote

“It is never too early to be proactive in being prepared for the unexpected.”

-- State Sen. Ron Brown (R-Eau Claire), who -- just in the nick of time --has issued a press release to let us know September is National Preparedness Month.

New Orleans website

For information right from the source, New Orleans website NOLA.com is the best. It includes the online version of the Times-Picayune and its Open letter to the President.

How you can help some victims directly

There are people in Milwaukee and Madison with direct connections to families in need after Katrina. Details in earlier post.

White House Plans to Control Political Damage

The headline and first few paragraphs of this New York Times story say it all. Maybe Bush should have put Rove in charge of the rescue efforts instead of cleaning up his political mess. Bush returns to the Gulf today to try to help himself, not the victims. He's going back because Congressional Republicans thought his first visit was a disaster. Maybe this time he will try to look sincere and have a little affect when he speaks.

White House Enacts a Plan to Ease Political Damage

By ADAM NAGOURNEY and ANNE E. KORNBLUT

WASHINGTON, Sept. 4 - Under the command of President Bush's two senior political advisers, the White House rolled out a plan this weekend to contain the political damage from the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.

It orchestrated visits by cabinet members to the region, leading up to an extraordinary return visit by Mr. Bush planned for Monday, directed administration officials not to respond to attacks from Democrats on the relief efforts, and sought to move the blame for the slow response to Louisiana state officials, according to Republicans familiar with the White House plan.

The effort is being directed by Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, and his communications director, Dan Bartlett. It began late last week after Congressional Republicans called White House officials to register alarm about what they saw as a feeble response by Mr. Bush to the hurricane, according to Republican Congressional aides