TIME poll: Voters back guest worker plan 3-1

Poll Analysis: Large Majority Favors “Guest Workers”

Here’s the report from TIME’s pollsters:

Posted Friday, Mar. 31, 2006

With the immigration debate raging in Congress and immigration supporters spilling out into the streets, the latest Time Poll finds a lopsided majority of the American public, 72%, favor a "guest worker" program in a head-to-head match-up over a House bill that would criminalize illegal immigration.

Only 1 in 4 (25%) support the more drastic House version that would make illegals felons, allowing no illegals into the country, with no guest worker provisions.

Quote, unquote

"The immediate danger is that Republicans will ignore their longer-term interests by passing a punitive, and poll-driven, anti-immigration bill this election year. Any bill that merely harasses immigrants and employers, and stacks more cops on the border, may win cheers in the right-wing blogosphere. However, it will do nothing to address the economic incentives that will continue to exist for poor migrants to come to America to feed their families. And it will make permanent enemies of millions of Hispanics, without doing anything to draw illegals out of the shadows and help them assimilate into the mainstream of American culture and citizenship.

This is not Ronald Reagan's view of America as a "shining city on a hill." It is the chauvinist conservatism usually associated with the European right. How Republicans conduct and conclude their immigration debate will show the country which kind of "conservative" party they want to be."

-- Believe it or not, a Wall Street Journal editorial.

Sensenbrenner a dirty household word

Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Florida, warns his fellow Repubs to tread carefully on the immigration issue.

He says that "Sensenbrenner” is now a household word in many Hispanic homes. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., is the House sponsor of a bill that would erect a 700-mile fence along the Mexican border and make criminals out of undocumented aliens.

"We as Republicans need to be careful how we address this issue,” said Martinez, the only foreign-born member of the Senate.

"The issue has galvanized the Hispanic and Latino community like no other. There’s a real political angle to this that is important to our party.”

It's wetlands, not wet lands

From Grist, the online environmental magazine:

Slippery When Wet
Bush admin declares that wet lands are wetlands, says acreage is way up

Yesterday, betraying no hint of irony, the Bush administration announced that even though the U.S. lost a net total of 523,500 acres of natural swamps and tidal marshes between 1998 and 2004, the country actually gained 715,300 acres of wetlands -- if you count features like ornamental lakes, golf course ponds, and mining pits filled in with water. And make no mistake: it does. Such artificial ponds provide few if any of the ecological services of a natural wetland -- soaking up floods, filtering water, providing habitat for diverse plants and critters -- but they're ... wet, and thus deemed wetlands in Interior Department surveys. Said National Wildlife Federation wetlands expert Julie Sibbing, "The most stunning thing about this report is that we're losing diverse natural wetlands in this country and the administration tells us it's OK because we've increased the number of ponds."

Straight to the source: St. Petersburg Times, Matthew Waite and Craig Pittman, 31 Mar 2006, and The New York Times, Felicity Barringer, 31 Mar 2006.

Updated Red v. Blue state map

Green covers his butt

For one of the first times in memory, Rep. Mark Green, an assistant Republican House whip, voted against his party leadership today, on a resolution calling for an investigation of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff's ties to House members and their staffs. Green, whose staffers have accepted favors from Abramoff's firm, was one of six Republicans to vote for the resolution.

Of course it was certain that the resolution, offered by Democratic leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi, wouldn't pass. The Republicans didn't need Green's vote, so they let him off the hook and let him vote "right." As a candidate for governor who already has a staffer linked to Abramoff, Green couldn't afford to vote against it.

In the political trade, it's called posing for holy pictures.

The Washington Post's Chris Cizzilli reports:

The resolution was set aside by a vote of 216-193 -- largely along party lines (the Republican majority voted to table Pelosi's proposal). Six Republicans voted with the Democrats: Reps. Jim Gerlach (Pa.), Todd Platts (Pa.), Mark Green (Wisc.), Mark Souder (Ind.), Jim Leach (Iowa) and Chris Shays (Conn.). Gerlach and Shays face tough reelection fights this year, while Green is running for governor in Wisconsin.

GPS: A halfway step

The latest legislative brainstorm: Global position monitoring of convicted child molesters for the rest of their lives, at a cost of $10,000 a year per person.

The Department of Corrections said could total $477 million over the next 20 years.

But forget the cost. There's a bigger problem. We would know where the offenders were, but not what they were doing.

A modest proposal:

Instead of a GPS chip, how about installing a small video camera in the forehead of every child molester, so we could monitor, 24 hours a day, what they are doing and seeing? We would still need the GPS chip, so law enforcement could find them when they were doing something naughty.

I don't have a cost estimate, but money's no object when it comes to dealing with these perverts. Why go halfway?

Pension suit: only one defendant?

Milwaukee County has sued the actuary for its pension plan which has nearly bankrupted the county and caused a political upheaval. The county hopes it could win as much as $100-million.

An earlier story identified the two main outside firms which worked on the plan:

Of the outside firms, two did heavy lifting on the deal: Mercer Human Resources Consulting and the law firm of Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren.

So far, at least, the Reinhardt firm, home base of Republican State Chairman Rick Graber, appears to be off the hook. Wonder why.

Paul Ryan for OMB director?

Lawrence Kudlow -- a former Reagan economic advisor, a syndicated columnist, and the host of CNBC’s Kudlow & Company -- thinks Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan would be "a grabd slam home run" as director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Ryan is campaigning now to be House Budget Committee chairman, but Kudlow says the White House is considering him to replace Josh Bolten, the new Bush chief of staff.

Kudlow's post.

Of course, that would open up another House seat in the mid-term elections, and the GOP may not want to risk it. Ryan is safe, but an open seat could be competitive.

Rent-to-own veto -- no surprise

Gov. Jim Doyle disappointed a lot of people on Thursday.

The longest faces must belong to the rent-to-own industry, the predators whose "business" is charging poor people two or three or fours times what furniture, appliances, television sets and other goods are worth.

The rent-to-own industry has been trying for years to get an exemption from the state's tough consumer law, which requires them to tell people, among other things, how much interest they're paying, like 900%. The bill also would have made it easier for the companies to repossess the items, making it more like rent-not-to-own.

They got the legislature to pass a bill, thanks to the help of rent-to-own lawmakers like State Sen. Ron Brown, R-Eau Claire, who took some rent-to-own contributions and sponsored their bill. Capitol wags were calling it the Ron Brown Re-election Bill. But Brown's not one of the losers. He can raise more cash to bring it back next session.

For some reason, people had the idea that Doyle might sign the bill -- despite the fact that he has been on the other side during his entire political career, and did battle regularly with rent-to-own while serving as attorney general and the state's tough consumer advocate.

Maybe that's because he said he would read the bill and consider it without just rejecting it out of hand.

Having done that, he vetoed it on Thursday -- as he should have, and as people should have known he would do.

Besides the rent-to-own industry, others who must be disappointed:

-- The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign's Mike McCabe, who issues press releases assuming that every decision Doyle makes is connected to campaign contributions. The group already had added up $22,500 in contributions it said Doyle got from supporters of the rent-to-own bill.

-- Journal Sentinel reporter Patrick Marley, who dutifully turns every McCabe press release into a front page "investigative" story, and

-- Journal Sentinel Managing Editor George Stanley, who splashes the McCabe-Marley stories on the front page. That's no doubt where today's story would have run if Doyle signed the bill. The veto story is buried in the business section, with a small headline on the bottom of the page. Marley didn't even get to write it.

Is there a bigger lesson here? Yes, but the people who are out to paint Doyle as an unprincipled politician who pays off political donors won't want to see it. Let's state the obvious anyway:

Sometimes people make contributions and get what they want from government. But that's not prima facie evidence of cause and effect, because ...

Some people make contributions and don't get what they want.

And some people make no contributions and get what they want.

That's true whether we're talking about legislation or contracts. Some donate and get contracts. Some donate and don't get contracts. Some don't donate and still get contracts.

But that really ruins the McCabe version of how government works.

One more thing: Doyle's veto will add another to a long list of clear distinctions between him and his opponent, Mark Green. When Green was in the Assembly, he was the chief water boy for rent-to-own, sponsoring one of the bills that AG Doyle denounced.

Another theory shot to hell

This is certainly going to ruin Wisconsin Democracy Campaign's day. More later.

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

Flashy Bull running?

The Journal Sentinel-Tommy Thompson lovefest still runs hot and heavy. The latest report from Katherine Skiba, who seems to hang on every word from Tommy, is that Thompson owns a racehorse named Flashy Bull, presumably after his owner.

The surprise was that the only speculation about running for anything was the Kentucky Derby. It's been days since we heard about Tommy's position on running for governor, the Senate, President, or anything else that might open up.

C'mon, Kathy, what's the latest? We're all dying to know.

Headline of the day

Taxation discussed without taxpayers

-- Story.

Carrie Lynch comments on Our bashful state legislators.

Inequity in campaign laws sunk Walker

After blaming his inability to compete in the governor's race on the amount of money Gov. Jim Doyle was raising, Scott Walker has now conceded what most politicos already knew: It wasn't Doyle's warchest, it was Mark Green's that forced Walker out. And it all goes back to a State Elections Board decision that allowed Green to transfer in $1.3-million from his Congressional campaign account.

From a WisPolitics interview with J.R. Ross:

Ross: Looking back big picture at the $1.3 million transfer and the Green organization, especially with the Bush-Cheney campaign from 2004, was there anything you could have done to win this nomination, to run the campaign you wanted to run to raise the money you needed to raise to win this nomination and compete against Jim Doyle?

Walker: Nope.

Obviously there are always things you can do better. But I think you hit the nail on the head -- those two things: Graul’s involvement with the Bush-Cheney campaign organization and more importantly the $1.3 million that Green transferred was really the fundamental difference.

Green's transfer from his House campaign account, amassed over several reelection cycles when he had no serious challenge but continued to milk the Washington special interests, took advantage of a big inequity in state law. It's tempting to call it a loophole, but the provision was there by design, not oversight, so inequity is a better fit.

It was not unprecedented. Tom Barrett, then a Milwaukee Congressman, did the same thing in the last governor's race, transferring in $750,000 over the protests of his opponent, Jim Doyle (and yours truly, who was working for Doyle.) At the time, Barrett transferred in more than Doyle had in the bank, but Doyle went on to win the primary anyway.

Doyle challenged the transfer with the State Elections Board, arguing that even if Barrett could legally transfer money, he should not have been able to transfer hundreds of thousands of dollars from federal political action committees which were not registered in Wisconsin and could not legally give to a candidate for governor. The board unanimously sided with Barrett. Republican appointees were in a screw-Doyle mode and liked the prospect of a bloody Dem primary. Democratic appointees didn't want to look like they were taking sides, although some of them were in a screw-Doyle mode, too.

In January 2005, the Elections Board tried to block Green's $1.3-million transfer by passing an emergency rule to outlaw such transfers, but Green transferred his money -- which included $500,000 to $800,000 in PAC money, depending on who's counting -- the day before the board met. Then the Republican majority on a legislative committee overturned the rule anyway. But now the law has been changed, too late to help Walker.

What's wrong with allowing such transfers?

Barrett and Green both offer textbook examples, one in each party.

The law allowed a member of Congress in a safe seat, who may not even have a challenger, to collect and hoard vast sums of money from Washington special interest groups, who want access and influence with the member but couldn't care less who the governor of Wisconsin is. After several cycles, that amounts to a significant amount of money, much of it raised from sources that are either illegal or not available to a state candidate to access.

It makes for a very uneven playing field.

In this case, it ended a primary campaign six months early.

The Elections Board promulgated (great word) a new rule in September that prohibits such transfers, so Green's will presumably be the last.

Biggest potential loser: Rep. Paul Ryan, the Janesville Republican, who reported $1.5-million in the bank at the end of 2005. He may be waiting for a U.S. Senate seat to open up, for which he could legally use the money. But unless there is a flip-flop by a future Elections Board or legislature, he can't use it to run for a state office.

It has long been illegal to use state campaign funds to run for federal office, under federal law. Now the same principle applies in both directions, as it should.

Ya think?

Editorial: We can do better with juries

From the Journal Sentinel:

The big trial has gotten off to a horrible start. The fate of three white ex-police officers accused in the vicious beating of a biracial man will rest in the hands of an all-white jury. Its makeup means the jury instantly loses credibility with a sizable segment of Milwaukee County.

No shit, Sherlock. How could this happen with the racial makeup we have in Milwaukee County?

Read the rest.

Racine county says no to openness

You may recall awhile back when Racine County Exec (and State Senate candidate) Bill McReynolds told a county supervisor she needed his permission to talk to county staff. McReynolds backed down in the glare of some bad publicity.

But some things haven't changed. The Racine Journal Times reports:

Lange loses resolution battle

IVES GROVE - A proposal to affirm the county's commitment to open government was defeated 17-5 Tuesday night.

The resolution, introduced by Supervisor Diane Lange two weeks ago, called for the County Board to support "unconditional commitment to open communication" between the board and the executive branch. It also asked the county executive to allow employees to speak with elected officials.

Lange said she had hoped the County Board would unite in favor of open government. Instead, she said, the board saw the issue as a conflict between herself and County Executive Bill McReynolds.

"It's unfortunate that that's how some people played this out," she said.

Lange crafted the resolution after she clashed with McReynolds in November. During the budget approval process, McReynolds directed staff to refer Lange - who opposed parts of the county executive's budget - to him if she came to them with any requests for information...

McReynolds and his supporters said the resolution was a political gimmick. Rven if that were true, what would have been the harm of passing it?

You can help. Download and distribute this.

What you'll need to register on Tuesday

Going to register at the polls on Tuesday, when you vote in the spring general election?

There's a lot of new and conflicting information out there, some of it false. And there have been enough changes so some of the people working at the polls may not know the rules, either.

Be sure you do.

The new Help America Vote Act should have been called Hinder Americans' Voting Act, given the confusion it has caused.

Here is the pertinent information for Tuesday. We'll worry about the fall elections in the fall:

1. If you have a Wisconsin driver's license, it would be wise, but not required, that you have it with you. That will allow the poll worker to write down the license number on your registration card.

2. If you don't have a license or don't have it with you, you will need to know the last four digits of your Social Security number. You don't need to have the actual card with you, but you do need to know the number. (If you have your driver's license, you don't need your Social Security number.)

3. You need some proof of your current address -- a lease, utility bills with your name and address, or other documents showing where you live.

Mark Green, the man who would be governor, has objected to the Elections Board decision and wants everyone to show a driver's license or be deported. (Well, that's a slight exaggeration.) Jef Hall suggests Green is trying to keep seniors away from the polls, and he has good reason to.

More Ds than Rs, Gallup says

More people are now willing to identify themselves as Democrats than Republicans, Editor and Publisher reports:

Gallup: In Shift, More Americans Now Call Themselves Democrats

NEW YORK In a (perhaps) historic shift, more Americans now consider themselves Democrats than Republicans, the Gallup organization revealed today.

Republicans had gained the upper hand in recent years, but 33% of Americans, in the latest Gallup poll, now call themselves Democrats, with those favoring the GOP one point behind. But Gallup says this widens a bit more "once the leanings of Independents are taken into account."

Independents now make up 34% of the population. When asked if they lean in a certain direction, their answers pushed the Democrat numbers to 49% with Republicans at 42%. One year ago, the parties were dead even at 46% each.

This shift indicates, Gallup says, why its polls show Democrats leading in this year's congressional races.

The latest poll was taken from January to March 2006, with a national sample of about 1,000 adults.

The Jerry Lewis telethon for Scott Walker.
Dennis Dork York has the scoop.

A newer, lower contribution standard

Just when you think the Journal Sentinel has stretched things to the limit to try to link Jim Doyle's donations to state contracts -- like writing about donations that were given to someone else by another company -- the standard gets lower.

The latest: Employees of a firm with a state contract give money to Doyle's campaign a year later.

Employees of Equis gave a total of $27,250 to Doyle in June and October of 2005, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign...

"This is another in what is now a pretty long line of examples of companies that have ponied up around the time of getting state business," said Mike McCabe, the group's executive director. "It doesn't smell right."

The donations were made more than a year after the deal was reached. The contract was signed in April 2004, after Equis beat out two other firms - Deloitte Consulting and CB Richard Ellis - for the work...

Let's review. If you give before a contract is awarded, it's a bribe to get the contract. If you give afterward, it doesn't smell right.

What McCabe -- and, apparently, the Journal Sentinel, or at least reporter Patrick Marley -- seem to think would be appropriate would be a law that no one who does business with the government can ever contribute to the governor's campaign -- not a year before, not a year afterward, not ever.

So if you ever wanted to be able to bid on a state contract, you could never give, nor just to Doyle but to any Democratic group or candidate (that's the standard in the earlier story.)

And the Doyle administration could award all of the contracts to Republicans, because it would be barred from doing any business with friends, donors or Democrats.

Is it just me, or is there something wrong with that picture?

Photo of the Week: First meeting of the Mark Green-Scott Walker Rainbow Coalition.

Green spending limit accepted

Mark Green's opponent in the governor's race has agreed to Green's proposed spending limit.

Resumably, this means that the two of them will be adiding by it.

The world according to W

George W. Bush is on a roll.

First he suggests that perhaps global warming is a natural occurrence, although the scientific community -- and Bush's own EPA -- think otherwise.

But he easily topped that with the assertion that Saddam Hussein, not the US presence, is responsible for the ongoing sectarian violence in Iraq.

As the guy said when his wife caught him in flagrant delicto, "Hey, who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?"

Imagine that

Right wing blogger Dad29 has a scoop.

He has discovered, through some ground-breaking investigative work, that hundreds of thousands of people didn't just spontaneously take to the streets to protest draconian changes in immigration law championed by Rep. F. Jim Sensenbrenner and others.

Those demonstrations were organized!

Latinos, Dad has discovered, even have radio and TV stations and newspapers, all of which helped to promote the rallies and marches.

Even Milwaukee has a Latino station, and it promoted the march that attracted 10,000 people here. (Kind of like Republican radio promotes anti-tax and pro-war rallies for days on end, and even sends its announcers to act as emcees as well as shills.)

What next?

If it hadn't been for Dad's expose, we all would have gone on thinking that it was just coincidence that 10,000-plus Milwaukeeans came out of their houses at the same time, with flags and signs.

Boy, were we gullible.

-- Nick Anderson, Houston Chronicle, via Cagle.

Sensenbrenner's forked tongue spews poison on immigration bill

Rep. F. Jim Sensenbrenner, Pride of Wisconsin, certainly has a way with words.

First he dismissed the demonstration and show of strength by Milwaukee's Latino community as an "illegal alien rally."

Now, he calls the Senate version of the immigration reform bill "amnesty," although it clearly is anything but.

"It is amnesty," Sensenbrenner said, "because it gives someone who broke the law the same rights as someone who obeyed it. We should not let lawbreakers jump the line."

A persuasive argument, with words chosen to tilt public perception against the Senate's reasonable proposal. Amnesty is a word that sparks strong reactions.

But if amnesty is "giving someone who broke the law the same rights as someone who obeyed it," this ain't amnesty.

The Senate bill would allow immigrants who were in the U.S. illegally before 2004 to become permanent residents if they pay a $2,000 fine, pass a background check, learn English and work for six years. They could apply for citizenship five years after becoming a permanent resident.

That's hardly giving them the same rights as someone who comes to the US legally. It is making them jump through a series of hoops. Many would never make it.

Those in favor of the senate judiciary committee's bill call it "earned citizenship," an 11-year path to becoming an American.

"That's not amnesty," said Arizona Senator John McCain. "Amnesty is forgiveness. This is a payment of a fine. This is admission of guilt. This is working for years. This is learning English."

The bill would also require illegal immigrants to pay back taxes and pass a background check.

The NY Times editorial explains:

It Isn't Amnesty

...Attackers of a smart, tough Senate bill have smeared it with the most mealy-mouthed word in the immigration glossary -- amnesty -- in hopes of rendering it politically toxic. They claim that the bill would bestow an official federal blessing of forgiveness on an estimated 12 million people who are living here illegally, rewarding their brazen crimes and encouraging more of the same.

That isn't true. The bill, approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee in a 12-to-6 vote on Monday, is one the country should be proud of. Four Republicans, including the committee's chairman, Arlen Specter, joined eight Democrats in endorsing a balanced approach to immigration reform. The bill does not ignore security and border enforcement. It would nearly double the number of Border Patrol agents, add resources for detaining illegal immigrants and deporting them more quickly, and expand state and local enforcement of immigration laws. It would create a system to verify workers' identities and impose tougher punishments on employers who defied it.

But unlike the bill's counterpart in the House, which makes a virtue out of being tough but not smart, the Specter bill would also take on the hard job of trying to sort out the immigrants who want to stay and follow the rules from those who don't. It would force them not into buses or jails but into line, where they could become lawful residents and -- if they showed they deserved it -- citizens. Instead of living off the books, they'd come into the system.

The path to citizenship laid out by the Specter bill wouldn't be easy. It would take 11 years, a clean record, a steady job, payment of a $2,000 fine and back taxes, and knowledge of English and civics. That's not "amnesty," with its suggestion of getting something for nothing. But the false label has muddied the issue, playing to people's fear and indignation, and stoking the opportunism of Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader. Mr. Frist has his enforcement-heavy bill in the wings, threatening to make a disgraceful end run around the committee's work.

The alternatives to the Specter bill are senseless. The enforcement-only approach -- building a 700-mile wall and engaging in a campaign of mass deportation and harassment to rip 12 million people from the national fabric -- would be an impossible waste of time and resources. It would destroy families and weaken the economy. An alternative favored by many businesses -- creating a temporary-worker underclass that would do our dirtiest jobs and then have to go home, with no new path to citizenship -- is a recipe for indentured servitude.

It is a weak country that feels it cannot secure its borders and impose law and order on an unauthorized population at the same time. And it is a foolish, insecure country that does not seek to channel the energy of an industrious, self-motivated population to its own ends, but tries instead to wall out "those people."

It's time for President Bush, who talks a good game on immigration, to use every means to clarify the issue and to lead this country out of the "amnesty" semantic trap. He dislikes amnesty. Mr. Frist dislikes amnesty. We dislike amnesty, too.

The Specter bill isn't amnesty. It's a victory for thoughtfulness and reason.

This ticket is total BUSHIT

A woman's anti-Bush bumpersticker got her a $100 ticket.

Censurer, censuree meet at White House

[Sen. Russ] Feingold had to leave early from Tuesday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on how to legalize the National Security Agency surveillance program -- he had an appointment at the White House to meet the man he wants to censure.

Tom Curry at MSNBC has the story.

Good riddance

State Supreme Court:

Justice Wilcox will Retire from the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2007

Justice Jon P. Wilcox will retire from the Wisconsin Supreme Court when his current 10-year term ends in August 2007. He makes the announcement today, more than a year before the April 2007 election for the seat, to clear the way for those interested in becoming candidates in this statewide race.

His bio fails to mention that his campaign was fined more than any campaign in Wisconsin history -- $60,000 -- for breaking the law, or that he paid a $10,000 fine for the way he conducted his last campaign, and that others who worked on it were barred from Wisconsin politics for several years. One of them, Mark Block, is back in Wisconsin as the front man for Americans for Prosperity, one of those "shadowy" groups supporting Bride of TABOR.

Happy retirement, Justice Wilcox. Don't let the door hit you in the rear end on the way out.

New low standard for Doyle connections

Most readers probably didn't notice, but the Journal Sentinel set a new low standard this week for "evidence" of some connection between state contracts and political donations, in its story about Silver Oaks, the company that the state hired to help with the procurement contract.

In the first article, low in the text, reporter Patrick Marley acknowledged that Silver Oaks had not given Gov. Jim Doyle any money, nor were there contributions to any other politicians or political entities. So in the second article, Marley reported that the company that bought Silver Oaks more than a year after they received the contract, and was a competitor in the same field, gave Doyle $1,100, gave the Democratic and Republican governors associations money and gave "more than $33,000 to Democratic federal candidates nationally and Democratic-leaning groups."

So here is the new twisted JS standard: Doyle is now being influenced to award a contract by money given to Democratic federal candidates in other states by a different company that later purchases the company that was awarded the contract.

And this is front-page stuff.

Bruce Murphy of Milwaukee Magazine says:

Two days later, the Journal Sentinel ran another front-page story suggesting that Silver Oaks was actually hired because of its campaign donations. The only problem was that the paper had no proof. Reporter Patrick Marley showed us that CGI-AMS, now the parent company of Silver Oaks Solutions, gave some $70,000 in donations split between the Democratic and Republican governors associations. So now any donations to governors count, whether or not they can be traced to Doyle? Moreover, Doyle's folks hired Silver Oaks some 18 months before it was bought by CGI-AMS. So what is the relevance of some donations by a company with no connection to Silver Oaks?

In similar fashion, the story noted that two former "high-level" state officials went to work for CGI-AMS. But once again, this was long after the contract to Silver Oaks was awarded by the Doyle administration. It was also before Silver Oaks was purchased by CGI-AMS. So it's doubly irrelevant.

The paper's smear campaign went further, noting that CGI-AMS employees also donated $33,000 to Democratic federal candidates nationally and Democratic-leaning groups. So now any contributions to any Democrats or fellow travelers in the 50 states can be used to suggest that Doyle is somehow sneakily benefiting? This guy is really well-connected.

The only shred of possible evidence in the story was that since 2001,employees of CGI-AMS gave $1,100 to Doyle. First off, that's chicken feed. Secondly, CGI-AMS didn't own Silver Oaks when the latter was hired, so the donations are irrelevant yet again.

This is such sloppy reporting that you have to ask how it could be published...

Murphy has a theory about that, too.

Quote, unquote

"If I were grading I would say we probably deserve a 'D' or a 'D-plus' as a country as to how well we're doing in the battle of ideas that's taking place in the world today."

-- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Green: 'Not time for issues'

I've often marveled, and sometimes commented here, about Mark Green's ability to avoid talking about issues when he doesn't want to, which seems to be a good deal of the time.

At yesterday's lovefest with Scott Walker, he did it again.

Two things surprised me a little. First, the report in the AP story, that:

Green ... said he would release more details of his political positions later...

and second, that the press corps would let him get away with that.

This guy's running for governor. When he has a rare news conference, any question a reporter wants to ask should be fair game. Do you think Jim Doyle could get away with saying he'll tell you about his political positions later?

Happy Three Mile Island Anniversary. More nukes in Wisconsin? No thanks.

-- Daryl Cagle.

Senate panel OKs guest worker plan

The Senate Judiciary Committee has tried to put some common sense back into immigration reform. We'll see if reason or the yahoos prevail.

Senate Panel Approves Broad Immigration Reform

Reuters
Monday, March 27, 2006; 6:01 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An immigration reform bill that would create a guest worker program pushed by President George W. Bush and give millions of illegal immigrants a chance to earn citizenship was approved on Monday by a U.S. Senate panel.

The first step toward comprehensive legislation was passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee and now goes to the full Senate for debate.

Including the contested guest worker program, which would allow future temporary workers a chance to become permanent residents, sets the stage for a bruising battle over immigration. The bill would also give some of the millions of illegal immigrants a chance to legalize their status and earn eventual citizenship.

AP notes:

After days of street demonstrations that stretched from California to the gounds of the U.S. Capitol, the committee also voted to strip out proposed criminal penalties for residents found to be in this country illegally.

Mark Green's phony 'pledge'

Have you ever noticed how it's always the candidate with less money who proposes a campaign spending limit?

Today it's Mark Green, challenging Jim Doyle to sign a "clean campaign pledge" that is more about helping Green financially and politically than it is about cleaning anything up.

in Greenspeak, a "clean" campaign is one in which the candidate with the most money agrees not to spend it, and both candidates say they abhor independent expenditures, and will penalize themselves if some independent group spends money on their behalf -- which, of course, the law forbids them to control.

If spending limits are such a great idea, why didn't Green propose it for the Republican primary? Both he and Scott Walker could have spent a reasonable amount and saved the rest for the general if they won. But Walker got out of the race because Green had twice as much money as he did, because Green took advantage of a legal loophole, since closed, that allowed him to transfer $1.3-million from his House campaign to the governor's race. That -- not how much money Doyle has raised -- is what forced Walker out of the race.

But that was last week, when Green was using his cash advantage. Now he's on the short end of the stick and wants a limit. Fat chance. He knows that, of course. This is political posturing, pure and simple.

Green correctly notes that Doyle proposed a clean campaign pledge in his race against Scott McCallum in 2002. McCallum wouldn't sign it.

But that pledge wasn't about spending limits or independent groups.

It was about candidates taking responsibility for cleaning up their own campaigns.

Here's the pledge Doyle proposed to McCallum:

As candidates for the office of Governor, we agree that the people of Wisconsin are not best served by negative campaigns. Instead, we pledge to conduct a campaign that focuses on our own records, experience and positive vision for the future of Wisconsin. In that spirit, we hereby pledge:

1. We will not run television or radio commercials, send mailings or distribute literature that mentions our opponent by name.

2. We will not distort or misrepresent our opponent's positions or record. We will not misrepresent, distort, or otherwise falsify the facts or mislead the electorate regarding any candidate.

3. We will not engage in personal vilification, character defamation or whispering campaigns directed toward any candidate.

4. We will instruct our campaign staff members, consultants and volunteers to conduct themselves in the same manner as we have agreed.

5. In order to have time to implement this pledge, the provisions noted above will take effect 48 hours after signature by both candidates.

Does that sound like posturing, pie-in-the-sky?

Well, it's idealistic, to be sure, but all three Democratic candidates for governor signed it and abided by it in the September 2002 primary. Doyle, Kathleen Falk and Tom Barrett all ran positive campaigns. They didn't quibble about who was spending how much money, or whether some outside group was independently helping one of thecandidatess.

They took responsibility for the tone of their own campaigns.

That's the kind of pledge Green and Doyle should be discussing, if they are serious about a "clean" campaign.

Green's not, of course. Owen Robinson gets to the point in his post:

From a political standpoint, this is a great move. If Doyle agrees, the he is throwing away his funding advantage. If he declines, then Green can rip him for it, and so will all of the campaign finance watchdogs like Mike Ellis and the Democracy Campaign - assuming that they have an ounce of integrity. Either way, Doyle comes out losing. Works for me.

Don't underestimate the voters. They are smarter than Mark Green thinks. This move is so transparent that they don't even need to be very smart.

And furthermore: A political friend points out that Green is not the Republican nominee yet, although he and the media are acting like he is. So it is a little premature for him to be making these sorts of proposals. The filing deadline, when we find out for sure who is running, is not until July.

UPDATE: Cory Liebmann discovers that an imbalance in spending has not bothered Green in his previous campaigns.

Condolences

I didn't know Tom Metcalfe, although, like everyone who has worked on a Wisconsin political campaign, I have been to Brat Fest at Hilldale with a candidate or two.

This tribute is from Gary Fisher, an occasional contributor to this blog:

A charismatic guy with a touch of class, Tom Metcalfe,the popular grocer, died Sunday at the age of 70.

A successful businessman and community leader,Metcalfe served a-10-year tenure as the mayor of Monona, sat on numerous city committees and private boards and gave his support to the Republican Party.

He earned praise for his community involvement including the "Brat Fest" celebration at the Hilldale Sentry that raises money for charities and other organizations and brings the community together.

When Tom's granddaughter Allie Metcalfe traveled to Las Vegas in February to win the 2006 National Best (grocery) Bagger Competition, he unabashedly said "the best woman won!"

Asked why grocery checkers routinely mark $20 bills?

"That's to let the bank know all that money is coming from the grocery," he jokingly said

Tom's mantra was about "not meeting but always exceeding customers' expectations."

A plaque in a new library addition in Monona prominently memorializes Tom as a generous donor. His many revitalization projects as mayor include proposed reconstruction of Monona Drive from Broadway to Starkweather Creek, near Olbrich Botanical Gardens.

He led the community in an important direction making way for the addition of the new community swimming pool.

Lisa Nelson and friends from the Wisconsin National Guard Band slogged through the slush on a wintry evening to carol at Tom and Margaret's classy Italianate architecture house on Lake Monona. With the impromptu troupe was an Italian opera singer visiting from Chicago who sang a solo aria, acapella in a lilting, mellifluous voice. In down parkas and snowmobile suits they all later joined Tom for a memorable photo.

Hearing an impartial observer of the Monona City Council remonstration against the uncomfortable metal chairs, Tom considerately provided a thin section of the Wisconsin State Journal as a seat cushion.

Whether consulting Gorilla Trades for stock picks and market trading or visiting Maui and the Rusty Harpoon, a bar-restaurant owned by his brother, Jerry Metcalfe,
Tom Metcalfe had a great sense of humor and was always in good spirits.

"I hate to leave, to be honest with you," Tom Metcalfe once told a crowd of well wishers at city hall. "I truly enjoyed this community."

We hear you. Tom Metcalfe is now among the best of
spirits.

-Gary Fisher

The high cost of anti-immigrant law

-- Stuart Carlson, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
From Think Progress:

Today on CBS’s Early Show, Bay Buchanan — right-wing strategist and sister of Pat Buchanan — argued that the government can, and should, deport all the undocumented workers in the United States.

BUCHANAN: Every guest worker program in the history of this country and any other country around the world has always turned into amnesty. He says it’s impossible to move these people out. It is certainly not impossible. It is very realistic. We should absolutely stand up to the law and let people come through legal channels, but in no way reward them for illegal behavior.

But as Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM) later points out, it is “unrealistic to deport” 11 million people, many of whom are already paying U.S. taxes. A 2005 American Progress study found that it would cost at least $206 billion over five years to deport all undocumented workers. The annual $41.2 billion cost exceeds the entire FY06 budget for the Department of Homeland Security.

Of course, an alternative would be to give them all five-year prison terms, which are part of Rep. F. Jim Sensenbrenner's bill to make it a felony to be in this country illegally. How much would that cost?

Green shills for corporations at victims' expense

Liability law deform -- to prevent victims from having a chance to be compensated for damages done to them by defective products -- is at the top of the Republican agenda. Corporate interests are pushing hard.

It's certainly well choreographed.

The US Chamber of Commerce came to Wisconsin today to complain about Wisconsin's laws, and the WMC was right there to call for passage of the same bills Gov. Jim Doyle vetoed earlier. Same old technique; keep passing bills you know won't be signed into law, and try to use them to score political points.

That will only work if no one tells the other side of the story, that this isn't about business climate, but about innocent victims hurt by unsafe or defensive products like lead paint, which can cause lifelong brain damage. WMC has said it thinks the companies who made the lead paint have no responsibility.

The ironically named Wisconsin Institute for Civil Justice chimes in.
And Mark Green is right there with his own news release, echoing the Chamber and WMC. It's nice to see the corporate interests and their candidate working so closely. At least the voters will know who's who come November.

Timetable derailed, Walker shifts gears

His plan to live in the Governor's Residence next January dashed and his political timetable in tatters, Scott Walker lost no time in backing out of his past statements about how long he would like to be Milwaukee County executive.

The day after withdrawing from the governor's race, WisPolitics reported:

As for his political future, Walker said there is a “good chance” he’d run again for Milwaukee County executive.

“I plan on being here long enough to continue to get things back on track again,” Walker said. He added that he doesn't see himself as county executive in 10 years and that he’d consider a possible future run for governor or Senate. By entering the governor’s race at the relatively young age of 38, Walker noted that “in the end I’m not forced to make a bad decision because this is my last chance.”

What Walker didn't say is that ever since he first ran, in a 2002 special election, he has pledged not to serve beyond 2008.

The story then:

Walker will serve the rest of Ament's four-year term. Walker promised he would not serve beyond 2008. He also promised to cut his annual salary by $50,000. The job currently pays $128,820 a year.

A 2002 Q&A with the Journal Sentinel: reaffirmed his plan:

Q: Just so everyone is clear, you do, if you win, plan to run again in 2004?

A: Yes. I don't have an interest in running beyond that. I certainly didn't grow up wanting to be county executive and up until January, I never had seriously thought about it.

And yet another story:

Walker says he won't stay as county executive beyond 2008, when he'd be 42, and may one day pursue a business career.

"I imagine I'd have a pretty good pitch to any business out there; having resurrected a billion dollar government, think of what I could do for their business?"

But that was then, when he had no doubt that by 2007 he would be living in Maple Bluff.

During his 2004 reelection campaign, he said again that it would be his last term, and -- planning on that move to Maple Bluff -- refused to sign a pledge that he would serve out his full four-year term if we won.

But this is now. He's out of the race with no good political prospects. What's he going to do to keep his name in the news and keep his options open?

Why, stay on as county executive.

But if Milwaukee County government remains on its current path -- with Walker begging for a state bailout to prevent bankruptcy -- by 2008 another four years as county exec may not seem so appealing -- to Walker or to the voters.

UPDATE: Seth Zlotocha doesn't think sticking around as county exec will be that appealing. Read his post at In Effect.

Would Green sign SD abortion law?

Rep. Mark Green, now the only Republican candidate for governor, has been quite successful at avoiding issues he doesn't want to talk about. For months, senior groups and Democrats tried to smoke him out and get him to talk about his position on President Bush's unpopular plan to privatize Social Security, which went nowhere. Green simply ducked, time after time, even claiming he hadn't had a chance to read it and wasn't familiar enough to take a stand.

That came to mind when reading this Philadelphia Inquirer story:

On S.D. abortion law, loud silence

By Dick Polman
Inquirer Political Analyst

Republicans in Washington are always willing to weigh in on the issues that are important to their conservative base - Iraq, immigration, taxes, federal spending, the Medicare drug plan, the Dubai ports deal, you name it.

But, lately, hardly anybody in the GOP camp seems anxious to address the historic event that transpired this month out on the high plains and now threatens to roll eastward, to the U.S. Supreme Court.

It is, of course, abortion. For the party of the elephant, the new South Dakota law -which prohibits the procedure for every woman in the state, unless she is dying - is truly the elephant in the room.

It puts Republican politicians, especially those seeking the 2008 presidential nomination, squarely on the spot. If they side with conservatives - who tend to vote heavily in the primaries, and who generally hope that the South Dakota law will be a weapon to overturn Roe v. Wade - they risk alienating the independent voters who often swing November elections. The swing people generally desire that the right to legal abortion, as codified by Roe, be sustained.

That explains why not a single Republican with White House aspirations has declared that the South Dakota law - passed by a Republican legislature, and signed on March 6 by a Republican governor - should be the model for an ultimate ban on abortions nationwide. None bring up the law at all; they have to be asked first.

So here's my question:

Will any Wisconsin reporter ever ask Mark Green whether he would sign that South Dakota bill, and press him to give a real answer?

We know Gov. Jim Doyle would veto it in a heartbeat.

And Mark Green?

Help find Milwaukee's missing boys

New website.




Poster , with better photos, that can be downloaded, posted, distributed, e-mailed, etc.

The authorities believe the boys are still in Milwaukee.

Slow news day

Had to be a slow news day. How else to account for a story on the state AP wire saying the US Chamber of Commerce is trashing Wisconsin's "business climate" because our Supreme Court thinks victims should be able to sue and perhaps collect damages.

It's a dog-bites-man story if there ever was won. The Chamber is the national version of Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC), which has been lobbying hard on legal liability issues, including running radio ads in which the WMC calls itself the Wisconsin Chamber of Commerce.

The Chamber and WMC have targeted Gov. Jim Doyle for defeat this year, and this is part of that effort. AP reports:

To highlight the study, the nation's largest business group will begin running print, radio and billboard ads in Wisconsin this week featuring the message "Wrong Way." . . .

The New York-based Center for Justice & Democracy, a national consumer group, dismissed Wisconsin's ranking as "dishonest, unfair and contrary to the evidence about the state's positive business climate." The state was recently one of seven to receive top ratings from a national economic development organization, the group noted.

"These surveys reflect nothing more than the Chamber's political agenda to limit legitimate lawsuits and accountability for corporate wrongdoers," Joanne Doroshow, executive director of the group, said in a statement.

Feingold's censure call gives him a boost

Contrary to what the Repubs would like you to believe, Sen. Russ Feingold's call for censuring the President for illegal wiretapping has improved his standing among Democrats. Read the left-wing AP's report.

Republicans on the run

TIME magazine:

In recent weeks, a startling realization has begun to take hold: if the elections were held today, top strategists of both parties say privately, the Republicans would probably lose the 15 seats they need to keep control of the House of Representatives and could come within a seat or two of losing the Senate as well.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who masterminded the 1994 elections that brought Republicans to power on promises of revolutionizing the way Washington is run, told TIME that his party has so bungled the job of governing that the best campaign slogan for Democrats today could be boiled down to just two words: "Had enough?"

Hat tip: Political Wire.

Sensenbrenner awakens a sleeping giant

Max Blumenthal reports:

I have just returned from the largest, most energized demonstration I have ever witnessed in my life. Over 500,000 people filled the streets of downtown Los Angeles to march against HR 4437, a bill authored by Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner (heir to the Kotex fortune) which would turn 11 million undocumented immigrants into felons, punish anyone guilty of providing them assistance, and construct an iron wall between the US and Mexico.

The rally reached a crescendo as thousands of demonstrators lined the walls and bridges above the 101 freeway waving flags and cheering while an endless parade of cars and trucks blasted their horns in support. It was the sound of a sleeping giant awakening.

In passing HR 4437 and whatever draconian and utterly counter-productive bill emerges from the Senate, the congressional Republicans have become their party's worst enemy. They have cast their white, Southern base in conflict with the Latino constituency the RNC and the Bush White House realize they must win over if they are ever to achieve a so-called "Republican majority."

Lookin' out my back door

A dinosaur Victrola,
list'ning to Buck Owens.
Doo, doo, doo, Lookin' out my back door.

-- Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Buck Owens died March 25 in Bakersfield, CA. He was a lot more than "Hee Haw."

Watch the commercial.

Preparing for the 'worst'

Just in case their red-baiting doesn't work, conservatives like the Journal Sentinel's Patrick McIlheran are preparing for the worst -- passage of some anti-Iraq war referenda questions in a number of Wisconsin communities on April 4.

McIlheran's Sunday column makes all of the excuses in advance, as Jay Bullock points out in his thorough analysis.

On a related note, aren't you a little tired of the right-wing suggestion that local governments and local voters really have no business taking a stand on the war, because it's "a federal issue?"

Quote, unquote

"It's anti-faith based. It's inhumane. Sensenbrenner is inhumane."

--Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., opposing Rep. F. Jim Sensenbrenner's immigration bill.

Shame on Sensenbrenner

Editorial:

Sensenbrenner's crude language

A Cap Times editorial

We did not expect U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner to change his anti-immigrant position simply because tens of thousands of Wisconsinites rallied in Milwaukee this week to call for humane and responsible reforms to current immigration policies. But the Menomonee Falls Republican's cavalier dismissal of the massive demonstration as an "illegal alien rally" was as irresponsible as it was inaccurate.

While the crowd in Milwaukee was predominantly Latino, the best bet is that most of those present were citizens and legal residents of the United States. Even Sensenbrenner who is emerging as the House's leading immigrant basher ought to be smart enough to figure out that foreign citizens who do not want to reveal the fact that they are in the United States illegally do not show up in big numbers at public events organized to draw attention to immigration matters. Yet he dismissed the rally as a gathering of lawbreakers.

The congressman should be ashamed of himself.

Day-after mopup on Walker withdrawal

Random thoughts and observations on Scott Walker's decision to get out of the gov's race:

All for ethanol. One of the burning issues among Republicans, the ethanol "mandate," is off the table. Will the wingnuts be able to support a guy who agrees with Jim Doyle on what, just last month, was the litmus test for conservatives?

Didn't get the word. This anecdote from Lakeshore Laments about Friday night's Lincoln Day Dinner in Sheboygan: It turned out the Walker Campaign had sent an advance man to the LDD to set up and pass out their items. Around 5:30 pm someone else at the event asked him why he was there, after all Scott was bowing out. I was told he looked puzzled, quick got on the phone, and then left, leaving everything he had.

The chat. Grumps has video of the Scott Walker-Ken Mehlman chat about the governor's race.

The Amtal Rule has advice for Doyle on how to reframe the race.

James Widgerson's analysis declares that crossovers rarely happen in primaries. Actually, people cross over all the time, depending upon which ballot seems to have the more interesting races. What almost never happens is organized malicious crossovers, the mythical idea that Repubs will cross over to vote for the weaker Dem candidate, or vice versa. When people do cross over, they vote for the candidate they like. For a Repub voting in a Dem primary, that will be the more conservative Dem. A Dem voting in a Repub primary will usually pick the more liberal Republican. No mystery there.

Pat Kreitlow asks whether Republicans think the people of Wisconsin want a Washington politician to lead them.

Quote, unquote

God to Walker: Get Out

"I believe that it was God's will for me to run. After a great deal of prayer during the last week, it is clear that it is God's will for me to step out of the race."

-- Scott Walker, statement on withdrawing from governor's race.

Cory Liebmann: God changes mind, endorses Doyle.

Embarrassed Walker quits gov's race

Apparently Scott Walker did think that the embarrassingly juvenile piece about Jim Doyle and the trial lawyers was funny. I said this afternoon:

Does Walker think this is even remotely humorous? If so, it disqualifies him from being governor and he should just drop out now.

So he did. At least that's the way Spivak and Bice suggest it went down.

Seriously, I can't imagine that anyone saw this coming. I thought Walker would fight to the last breath, or at least as long as it appeared he had at least a shot at winning the Republican primary.

What changed? Well, it's no coincidence that Republican national chairman Ken Mehlman was in town this week. You have to assume that part of his mission in Wisconsin was to clear the field for Bush's favorite son, Mark Green.

How'd Mehlman do it? Some sort of political payoff. There's probably a federal job in Walker's future (FEMA would be about right). Or there's a promise to help him in a run for another office, or both. The other possibility is a role in a Green administration, but that seems like too much of a longshot to buy him off. Watch and see.

Walker has already promised more than once that he won't run for another term as county executive, so he will be looking for opportunities.

What does this mean for the governor's race? Clearly, Democrats would have preferred to see a couple of Repubs bash each other around until September, leaving the primary winner bloodied and broke. So that helps Green.

Walker was a strong candidate in southeastern Wisconsin, including Milwaukee County. But support from Walker's base is not transferable. Walker cannot deliver those votes to Green, even if he campaigns hard for him. Green is still an unknown right-wing Congressman from Green Bay, and a hard sell in heavily Democratic Milwaukee County.

Morning-after thoughts.

Getting it right: Walker withdrawal foretold

It's times like this, with Scott Walker's withdrawal from the race, that sends pundits to search their files to see how right or wrong they may have been in what they have written about the race.

There are no doubt plenty of embarrassing pieces making the case for Walker, how he would beat Mark Green, and why he was the stronger candidate. We won't try to dig them all up, tempting as it might be.

But, on the other hand, credit is due to my friend and sometimes Xoff Files blogger Jim Rowen, who first wrote on June 13, 2005:

The need for self-preservation and strong legacies are usually just as strong as ambition in the politician's mentality: Walker should think long and hard about the implications of a primary loss to Green, which would leave Walker weakened as he tries to solve the county's substantial difficulties.

A better plan is the strategic, early end to his campaign. There'd be no shame in it, and only smart politics.

Walker's stepping aside would spare Republican voters the need to choose among two almost identical right-wing opponents, open the way to a simplified partisan and ideological choice between Doyle and Green, and give Milwaukee County taxpayers what they really need and are paying for:

The full-time attention of a full-time county executive.

Rowen revisited the topic on Jan. 9, 2006 with this Capital Times column:

Walker Would Be Wise To Step Aside In Favor Of Rep. Green

By James Rowen

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel carried a long piece the day after Christmas that surely struck the Wauwatosa home of 2006 gubernatorial hopeful Scott Walker like a meteor-sized lump of coal.

The Journal Sentinel's David Umhoefer wrote that some GOP insiders were suggesting that Walker, the Milwaukee County executive, step aside in favor of the apparent front-runner, Green Bay Congressman Mark Green.

Walker responded that he had no such intention, had already raised $1 million, and was modeling his underdog campaign on Lee Sherman Dreyfus' upstart, upset 1978 GOP primary win.

Give credit to Walker for quick thinking and an active imagination -- but his campaign and Dreyfus' have little in common.


Dreyfus was a wily outsider who parlayed his teaching and communications skills into a charming, grass-roots crusade.
Walker, by contrast, is the consummate partisan insider, a career politico who began as a state assemblyman and has become the darling of Milwaukee's right-wing talk radio hosts.

It was Walker's talk radio allies, ironically, who ripped the 79-year-old Dreyfus on the air last year, mocking the former governor as "King of the RINO's" (Republican in Name Only) for opposing one of their fashionable ideological touchstones: the knee-jerk tax freeze.

And let's not forget that Dreyfus was a university professor and administrator, while Walker left Marquette University before graduating.

Though he skillfully rode a local taxpayers' revolt into the Milwaukee county executive's office, Walker, at age 38, has little of the broad and moderating experience that helped Dreyfus seize the public's imagination, win the 1978 GOP primary and ultimately defeat the incumbent, Gov. Martin Schreiber.

Walker's essential dilemma in the primary race against Green is this: They share the same, right-of-center Republican base.

It would be different if Walker were to the right of Green, or to his left, or had some special blend of history or achievements -- something ... anything -- to differentiate him in a meaningful way from the Green Bay congressman.

But that is not the case. Rather, Walker's campaign rests on political projections: Walker believes he can outpoll Green in ultra-Republican Waukesha County (more likely it will be a roughly even split), and pull in more Republicans in Milwaukee and its suburbs than Green (though it's probably true that Green will clobber him in the Fox Valley and in most of Wisconsin's Republican smaller cities, villages and towns).

Furthermore, Walker holds an office -- county executive -- that is a curiosity in Wisconsin. Only10 Wisconsin counties have elected county execs, putting Walker further outside the political mainstream statewide.

Let's face it: Member of Congress is an impressive title. It's an office most voters understand.

Milwaukee County is an enviable base from which to campaign for county executive, not governor. And the more that Walker runs to Milwaukee, the more outstate voters will run the other way, because no matter how unfair, there is anti-Milwaukee bias in the statewide electorate.

Barring a political earthquake, Walker's "from-Milwaukee" baggage will help Green win the GOP primary victory next fall.

Which brings me back to Walker, and why he should be watching the trial balloons some Republican veterans were floating in the Umhoefer/Journal Sentinel piece: strategic withdrawal.

* Last June, I wrote an analysis of the Walker campaign for WisPolitics.com and argued that Walker would and should abandon his foundering race.

At the time, I wrote:

"Walker made no secret of wanting to use the county executive's office as a platform to seek the governorship, but that may have looked more achievable in 2002 as a long-range plan than it does in the short run today.

"The need for self-preservation and strong legacies are usually just as strong as ambition in the politician's mentality: Walker should think long and hard about the implications of a primary loss to Green, which would leave Walker weakened as he tries to solve the county's substantial difficulties.

"A better plan is the strategic, early end to his campaign. There'd be no shame in it, and only smart politics.

"Walker's stepping aside would spare Republican voters the need to choose among two almost identical right-wing opponents, open the way to a simplified partisan and ideological choice between Doyle and Green, and give Milwaukee County taxpayers what they really need and are paying for:

"The full-time attention of a full-time county executive."

Which makes him look like a very smart man today.

What's wrong with Wisconsin politics?

We have a serious problem in Wisconsin. It's not about the tencency of politicians to ignore the people, or push their inane ideas on the people at taxpayer's expense, or the tendency of the people to let their triggers be tripped by the politicians.

It's about the failure of so-called political reporters to look beyond horse race stories to issues. OK, so Jim Doyle has a 40% approval rating, maybe, according to some polls whose motives and accuracy we really shouldn't trust. And, OK, this approval rating is twice as high as Dick Cheney's and on a par with George W. Bush's, but lower than almost everyone else in the universe, including the Ayatollah Khomeni and Osama bin Ladin.

So what?

I know political reporters aren't too secure, but they must be secure enough to go beyond this horse race stuff with some guy who works for the Republican Party, for crying out loud, and report something of substance instead of what he says about the 2006 campaign.

What the heck do they expect him to say? That W. is an incompetent and Hillary is not only smarter but better looking? Now there's a frightening thought.

Is it too much to ask for a little depth in political coverage? Have political beat reporters just awakened from hibernation and are still a little groggy and can we expect better in coming months?

Sports writers can do better than that any month of the year on any team in the NFL, NBA or DSL. And they're a lot more prone to interject some of their own understanding of the context, which political reporters must have some inkling of.

Maybe the media should just switch political reporters for sports reporters for the duraction of the 2006 campaign. Political junkies would be pleased at a new degree of color in political coverage, and to heck with the sports fans.

Walker quits governor's race

Walker withdrawing from governor's race
Milwaukee County Executive says he can't match Doyle's fund raising

By DAVE UMHOEFFER
dumhoefer@journalsentinel.com
Posted: March 24, 2006

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker is pulling the plug on his bid for the governor’s office, leaving fellow Republican Mark Green a clear shot at incumbent Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle in November.

Story.

Walker press release.

Just wondering

Who is writing this juvenalia for the Scott Walker campaign? Does Walker think this is even remotely humorous? If so, it disqualifies him from being governor and he should just drop out now. Truly embarrassing.

Jim Doyle and A Trial Lawyer: Their Conversation.

(Scene: Jim Doyle and a Trial Lawyer enjoy time together at the mansion earlier this week discussing dirty money and election year politics.)

Disclaimer: All characters and events in this satirical exchange-even those based on real people-are entirely fictional.

Trial Lawyer: Jimmy - we got a tough situation here. Capping medical malpractice damages is not good for 'my people' and I wouldn't want to have to cut off your reelection funding just because your veto pen didn't work.

Doyle: But Mr. Trial Lawyer, Scott Walker has been campaigning all over the state saying that these caps will cost the people millions in the form of higher health care costs. He's also written about it all over his website at www.scottwalker.org. We need to work together - what am I going to do?

Trial Lawyer: Jimmy, I know things are not looking good right now. You are sitting at 40% approval in most polls. Everyone agrees you are probably the most vulnerable incumbent governor in the country. In addition, I agree this Scott Walker fellow is causing you a lot of trouble. Let's be honest, four straight budgets that freeze the property tax levy - years of executive experience - a talented communicator with a message of taxes and trust and a fantastic BLOG that he writes himself. Hmm. We may need to rethink this.

Doyle: Oh thank you Mr. Trial Lawyer! Thank you, Thank you!

Trial Lawyer: Oh be quiet Jimmy, I have to make some phone calls, wait here.

(Trial Lawyer exits for a few moments for phone calls with the Trial Lawyer board of directors. Doyle waits patiently as he was told)

Trial Lawyer: Ok, we've discussed the situation and we're going to allow you to sign this bill, however, we have some requests.

Doyle: Anything! I'll do anything to sign this bill and take away an issue from Scott Walker. You know he got 58% in Milwaukee County during his reelection and I only got 57%. If he is my opponent, I am doomed.

Trial Lawyer: Shut up about Walker - there's nothing we can do about him now. Focus on this!

Doyle: Yes Mr. Trial Lawyer.

Trial Lawyer: Here's what you're going to do: you'll sign this bill and say that it's going to be a 'close call' on whether the state supreme court upholds the law. We're going to say we are 'surprised' by your decision.

Doyle: I like it, I like it!

Trial Lawyer: I'm not done yet. If I have to tell you one more time,

Doyle: Yes Mr. Trial Lawyer

Trial Lawyer: We have also decided that we will continue to fund your campaign with the following conditions:

1) You will tell the people of Wisconsin that you believe it is 'debatable' as to whether caps lower insurance rates and health care costs
2) You will make no further comment on your medical malpractice signature
3) You will veto all legislation related to liability lawsuits
4) Once elected, your first order of business will be to declare November 8th Trial Lawyer Appreciation Day.

Do you understand?

Doyle: It's going to take a lot of money to accomplish those tasks Mr. Trial Lawyer. Scott Walker has a huge following and is very popular with my base in Milwaukee.

Trial Lawyer: I agree, but you know how to buy elections; you've done it before.

(Trial Lawyer and Doyle laugh together) End Scene

-- From T-Shirt Humor.

Sensenbrenner too cute on immigration

"The illegal alien rally held in Milwaukee today was an impressive show of force."

That was how Rep. F. Jim Sensenbrenner began his response to a remarkable rally in Milwaukee Thursday which attracted upwards of 15,000 people to speak up for a fair, humane immigration policy.

There were people from all walks of life and many races who marched together to show their solidarity on the issue.

Sensenbrenner dismisses it as an "illegal alien rally."

Cute, really cute. Just what you'd expect from Sensenbrenner.

But what is he suggesting?

That the march and rally consisted of 15,000 illegal aliens?

That the march was illegal?

That the event expressed support for illegal aliens? If that's what he meant, there's some basis for it. But he didn't say what he said accidentally. He chose his words carefully, to describe the event -- one of the biggest and most impressive such rallies in Milwaukee in recent memory -- as "an illegal alien rally."

Immigration is an issue that is coming to the fore just in time for the mid-term elections. It's one in which President Bush, who actually knows something about the issue because of his Texas roots, has offered a far more reasonable proposal. But the Republican right, personified by Sensenbrenner, is hell-bent on putting people in jail instead of into jobs.

Sensenbrenner got his mean-spirited bill through the House, but cooler heads may prevail in the Senate. Let's hope so.

If you'd like to know more about the issue, today's national papers are a good place to start:

Washington Post: Immigration debate shaped by 08 election.

NY Times: Bush is facing a difficult path on immigration.

The Nation: Immigrants' wall of death.Latin American leaders say thousands of immigrants will die if the U.S. Congress passes the Sensenbrenner immigration bill.

Afterthought: I doubt you will ever again see "Sensenbrenner" and "cute" in the same phrase or sentence on this blog.

More reaction: Grumps finds F.Jim's logic a little illogical.

Asking the tough questions

Jessica McBride, legal scholar, asks in a post today:

How do you criminalize something that's already illegal?

Perhaps her husband, the district attorney, could explain it to her.

Or she could read this handy primer from the National Immigration Law Center, which says, in part:

Section 203 of HR 4437 would make it a crime for immigrants to be in the U.S. in violation of immigration laws or regulations. Immigrants convicted of this crime could be punished by imprisonment for a year and a day and/or a fine. Under current law, unlawful presence is a civil, not a criminal, violation of immigration law.

Quote, unquote

"They want to do just as they please, for as long as they can get away with it. I think what is going on now without congressional intervention or judicial intervention is just plain wrong."

-- Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., in an AP interview.

Coming soon to Fox6 News in Milwaukee?

It's probably not worth getting all decked out for the April 4 spring elections, because there's not much on the ballot. But maybe by the September primary we can look forward to a little "sparkle and shine" on Fox newscasts here. Robert Feder of the Chicago Sun Times explains:

If Mark Suppelsa, Robin Robinson and the rest of the folks who covered Tuesday's primary on WFLD-Channel 32 looked a bit more colorful than usual last night, that was no accident.

Believe it or not, the news anchors and reporters at the Fox-owned station were ordered by their boss to wear flashy clothes -- preferably "red white and blue."

In an internal memo obtained by this column, Andrew Finlayson, the recently installed vice president of news at Channel 32, told on-air staffers to think of their election night coverage as a "party" and to dress accordingly.

"Dull clothes are out," Finlayson declared. "Red white and blue is in . . . I know it sounds obvious . . . but sometimes people forget and show up in just shades of gray. We want to be comfortable, professional and ready to rock."

What's the point of his wardrobe edict? Ratings, of course.

"Sparkle and shine," Finlayson wrote, "and give the viewers a visual difference when they are flipping around. Content will win, but you want to catch the eye of our friends and neighbors at home."

As of this writing, it's too soon to tell whether the dress code had any effect on Channel 32's ratings. (The station's newscasts generally lag behind its competitors, which accounts for the recent management upheaval there.)

But the very idea of journalists being ordered to wear attention-getting costumes while they cover the news struck some staffers as offensive, patronizing or just plain dumb. And the idea of putting such a directive in writing might have been even dumber.

Cue the clowns and jugglers.

Oops! Coretta Scott King not a commie

UPDATE: The blogger in question, a former speech writer for Tommy Thompson at Health and Human Services, has resigned after plagiarism charges surfaced.

---

In the spirit of right wing bloggers like Wisconsin's own Charlie Sykes and Jessica McBride, the Washington Post's new conservative blogger is quick to call anyone with liberal views a communist.

A little too quick in the case of Coretta Scott King. Here's the Editor & Publisher story.

Hat tip: Think Progress.

'Terrorists learning to speak Mexican'

Rep. F. Jim Sensenbrenner explains the need for tight border security and draconian immigration policies:

He said two reasons for protecting the border are to avoid an influx of drugs into the country and terrorism.

"It’s a national security issue," said Sensenbrenner, stating that terrorists are learning to speak Mexican Spanish.

"The next 9-11 may not come from other ports of entry," he said.

It may be from terrorists infiltrating the country from Mexico, he said.

Let's hope those terrorists don't learn to speak Canadian.

New Feingold ad

You can hear it now:

"Even the Republican national chairman praises Russ Feingold as "a patriot and a good man" ...

Quote, unquote

"Senator Feingold is right to insist that the President honor both the law and the Constitution. If Feingold’s fellow Senators won’t vindicate his stance, history will."

-- Editorial, Bluefield (WV) Daily Telegraph.

--Pat Oliphant. (Click on cartoon to enlarge)

Bucher protesteth too much

Gee whillikers, Sandy!

DA Paul Bucher seems a little testy over my suggestion that he might be closer to agreement with Kathleen Falk than he would like to admit on the question of how to treat addicts in the criminal justice system.

It must have hit a little close to home, because Bucher explained at great length -- once he finished attacking me personally -- how his plan to let suburban repeat drunken drivers go is very different from Falk's plan, which he likes to characterize as letting huge numbers of Willie Horton's friends free in your neighborhood. He must have been up late to do that, after his busy day of locking up criminals and campaigning for office. Pretty good for someone who, his spouse suggested, doesn't know who I am and has never read his own blog.

Anyway, to get to the point in about 10% of the time it took him, here is Bucher's conclusion:

Judges know what they are doing when they sentence an offender to prison. Falk’s plan would release individuals like Dionny Reynolds, who was sent to prison on a drug offense. He later murdered a state Department of Justice drug agent and another man.

Guess what? Under the Falk plan, judges -- the ones Bucher says know what they are doing -- would make the decisions. Unless Bucher thinks the judges really can't be trusted, what is the problem?

Iraq war an 'external event?'

How's that again? The NY Times, speculating about whether President Bush will hire a new senior advisor, reports:

By most accounts inside and outside the administration, Mr. Rove is relentlessly cheerful, presenting himself as an optimistic face in a gloomy White House. One person who met Mr. Rove said he attributed Mr. Bush's problems more to external events, in particular Hurricane Katrina and Iraq, than to anything the White House did wrong.

So the war in Iraq is an outside event, like a hurricane, that just happened, rather than something Bush & Co. did wrong? Is it what the insurance companies call an act of God?

Incredible. In every sense of the word.

Gay marriage support growing

New evidence that the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages and civil unions may not be the slam dunk Wisconsin Republicans expected when they put it on the November ballot.

Pew Research Center reports:

Public acceptance of homosexuality has increased in a number of ways in recent years, though it remains a deeply divisive issue. Half of Americans (51%) continue to oppose legalizing gay marriage, but this number has declined significantly from 63% in February 2004, when opposition spiked following the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision and remained high throughout the 2004 election season. Opposition to gay marriage has fallen across the board, with substantial declines even among Republicans.

It's just possible that this will backfire and bring moderates and liberals to the polls, since the real issue here is not even gay marriage -- which is already illegal in Wisconsin -- but banning civil unions and rights and benefits that go with them.

The Wisconsin AFL-CIO has joined the growing list of groups that oppose the amendment.

Feingold's Daily Show video

Russ Feingold and Jon Stewart talk censure on The Daily Show. Story and video here.

A chance to confront Sensenbrenner

Maybe we could steer a few of this morning's marchers to the town hall meetings.

You've got to give Rep. F. Jim Sensenbrenner credit for one thing. He's consistent, even if it's consistently wrong.

Sensenbrenner, one of only 11 people to vote against federal help for Hurricane Katrina victims, voted recently against a supplemental appropriation, too. This time the vote was 348-71, and another Wisconsin Republican, Tom Petri, voted with him.

Sensenbrenner is in his suburban district this weekend, holding town hall meetings.

It's a good chance to ask him in person why he keeps voting against helping disaster victims, why he keeps taking those free junkets around the world at taxpayer expense, why he's so obsessed with immigration that he wants to build a 700-mile wall on the Mexican border and make felons out of illegal immigrants or anyone who helps them. That's just for starters.

Sensenbrenner's opponent, Democrat Bryan Kennedy, is urging voters to confront Sensenbrenner this weekend. I hope Kennedy will attend himself and see if he can engage F. Jim in some discussion. It should make for some good theater, and guarantee that Sensenbrenner blows a gasket. I'd invite TV cameras, or at least bring a camera crew of my own. That's today's free advice to the Kennedy campaign.

Sensenbrenner's town hall meetings will be on Saturday are at 9 a.m. at West Bend City Hall and at 1 p.m. at Waukesha State Bank, and on Sunday at the Menomonee Falls Safety Building at 7 p.m.

Don't let your babies grow up to be wingnuts

How to spot a baby conservative:

The Toronto Star reports:

Remember the whiny, insecure kid in nursery school, the one who always thought everyone was out to get him, and was always running to the teacher with complaints? Chances are he grew up to be a conservative.

OK, the study was done in Berkeley, and I'm sure McSkyes will find that the researchers have some commmunist connections. But it's a fun story nonetheless. Check it out.

Hat tip: Jim Rowen.

War in Iraq: Look for the silver lining

-- Daryl Cagle.
As the war in Iraq enters Year 4, the darned media continue to report bad news. What the hell, everybody knows war is hell. What's the good news?

In an AlterNet column, Will Durst tackles that subject and concludes the article with this list, which he calls the Bright Side to Xenophobic Genocide:

Baghdad University fraternity expulsions way down.

Six billion a month we won't be wasting on pork barrel politics.

Advances in battlefield medical procedures destined to benefit all of mankind.

Due to their renewed dedication to killing each other, the Sunnis and Shiites seem much less interested in targeting Americans these days.

VFW membership rolls are a bull market.

Grisly footage of dead in Iraq diverting attention from that whole Jack Abramoff thing.

Every single car bomb explosion means another opportunity for Detroit fleet sales.

Where tomorrow's stars of the Cadaver Dog World get first class training today.

Senseless secular violence has obviously intensified the hold of the truce in Northern Ireland.

There's a Burning Man Festival every day of the week.

When you're thinking organ donor heaven, we're talking Iraq.

Hey, it could be worse. There could be leeches.

And the final piece of good news coming out of the Iraq… spring has sprung.

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

AP provides blueprint for the fall campaign

Republicans mentioned in Jensen trial:

MADISON, Wis. (AP) - Scott Jensen used to be Assembly Republicans' leader. Now Democrats hope his GOP colleagues suffer in November because of him.

By The Associated Press, State Wire

The names of about two dozen Republicans and their operatives surfaced during testimony in state Rep. Scott Jensen's misconduct trial, suggesting some got taxpayer-funded campaign help from state workers or were involved in campaign activities on state time.

Jensen was found guilty of three felony misconduct in office charges and a misdemeanor. Prosecutors accused him of using his Capitol staff and state workers at the Assembly Republican Caucus to campaign for GOP candidates, including himself. State workers in the caucus were supposed to do policy research for lawmakers.

He also was accused of putting Sherry Schultz on the state payroll to function only as a GOP fundraiser. Schultz was found guilty of one felony misconduct count.

The charges stemmed from an investigation into corruption at the Capitol that was sparked by stories in the Wisconsin State Journal in 2001 detailing allegations of state workers campaigning on state time.

A string of current and former state workers testified during the trial, including: former caucus graphic artists Eric Grant and Kacy Hack; former caucus directors Jason Kratochwill and Ray Carey; former caucus workers Brian Dake and Bill Cosh; and legislative staffer Rose Smyrski. Sharon Bartels, state Rep. Gabe Loeffelholz's campaign treasurer in 2000, and Stacy Ascher-Knowlton, state Rep. Don Friske's campaign treasurer in 2000, also testified.

Here are some of the Republicans whose names came up in the trial, what was said about them and their reactions:

-U.S. Rep. Mark Green. Grant testified then-caucus media director Chris Tuttle signed off on state workers' campaign assignments. Grant also said Green aide Mark Graul requested campaign work from him for Green while Green was in the Legislature. Tuttle is now Green's congressional chief of staff and Graul is managing his campaign for governor.

Green campaign spokesman Rob Vernon said Green's campaign contracted with Grant for work, but where and when Grant did the work was up to him. Graul doesn't remember when or where he spoke to Grant about work orders, he said, and Green didn't know Tuttle was signing off on campaign work.

-Bruce Pfaff. Grant testified Pfaff, then a Jensen Capitol staffer, delivered caucus-produced campaign materials in 1998. Pfaff, now campaign manager for Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, another GOP gubernatorial hopeful in Wisconsin, told The Associated Press he sometimes delivered campaign materials when he worked as a policy analyst for Jensen in 1998, but he did it on his own time.

-State Rep. Rob Kreibich, R-Eau Claire. Grant said he produced Wisconsin Badgers and Green Bay Packers football schedules for the campaigns of Kreibich and Green. Kreibich didn't return a message the AP left at his Capitol office.

-Assembly Speaker John Gard, R-Peshtigo. According to testimony, Gard sat in on campaign meetings and was present at a meeting between Jensen and Kratochwill about moving Schultz to the state GOP headquarters after the newspaper stories broke. Gard is running for Congress this fall.

"The speaker has never been accused of any wrongdoing. We'll just stick to that,'' said Gard's spokeswoman, Christine Mangi.

-State Rep. Jeff Stone, R-Greendale. Dake testified he worked on Stone's campaign in 1998. He testified he thought the state Republican Party paid at least some of his salary while he was in the field. Dake said he reported Stone's finances to Schultz and helped prepare Stone's campaign finance reports.

Carey testified he developed a campaign plan for Stone's district in 1997; Stone was elected in an April 1998 special election. Stone has said he didn't know Dake may have been on state time, adding he played a limited role.

-State Rep. Garey Bies, R-Sister Bay. Dake said he also helped Bies' campaign. Bies said he didn't know what Dake did on his campaign "other than call me on an occasional basis to see if I was out campaigning.'' Bies said after he won the GOP primary in 2000, Jensen visited him and told him to lose weight. Bies said he was insulted and didn't pay any attention to what political operatives in Madison told him.

-State Rep. Judy Krawczyk, R-Green Bay. Dake said he helped her campaign, too. Krawczyk said Dake showed up on weekends. She knew he worked in Madison but didn't know he was part of the Legislature.

"Never did I ever imagine that anything I was doing was illegal. I am hoping it wasn't,'' she said. "Whose campaign didn't it touch? I was a freshman. I was unknowledgeable.''

State Rep. Phil Montgomery, R-Green Bay. Dake testified he stayed in Montgomery's basement while he worked on Bies and Krawczyk's campaigns. Montgomery didn't return messages left on his cell phone or at his Capitol office and district listings.

-State Sen. Neal Kedzie, R-Elkhorn. Smyrski testified she worked for Kedzie, R-Elkhorn, when he was in the Assembly in 2000. She was dispatched to northwestern Wisconsin to work on Rep. Mark Pettis' campaign, but she took leave from Kedzie's state payroll. She used a state computer at the caucus to make a list of hosts for a Kedzie fundraiser, she said, and brought a disk with Kedzie's campaign finances on it to the caucus.

Kedzie didn't return messages left at his Capitol office and district listing.

-State Rep. Jerry Petrowski, R-Marathon. Cosh testified he worked on Petrowski's campaign. He said he went 30 percent off the state payroll to focus full-time on Petrowski's campaign in August 2000.

Ascher-Knowlton, Rep. Don Friske's campaign treasurer, testified Petrowski's daughter, told her Schultz worked closely with their campaign and recommended Ascher-Knowlton call Schultz for help with Friske's finances. Kratochwill testified he helped set up TV ad shoots for Petrowski.

Petrowski didn't return messages left at his Capitol office and district listing.

-State Rep. Terry Musser, R-Black River Falls. Cosh said he made fundraising calls from the caucus on Musser's behalf. Musser said he had no idea Cosh raised any money for him.

"I didn't even know Bill Cosh was making those calls. Whether people believe me or not, that's up to them. Leave it up to the voters. That's why we have elections every two years.''

-State Rep. Dan Meyer, R-Eagle River. Cosh testified he offered campaign help to Meyer in 2000 as well, but Meyer wouldn't take it. However, Cosh later said a caucus photographer took Meyer's photograph, and a Cosh strategy report shows Meyer had nomination papers taken to the caucus to be dropped off at the state Elections Board. Meyer didn't return messages left at his Capitol office and district listing.

State Rep. Steve Kestell, R-Elkhart Lake. Kestell testified he met Schultz at the Capitol. He called her with questions about his campaign finances because the state Elections Board wasn't helpful. Kestell testified Schultz never did fundraising for him or told him to expect checks. He doesn't remember her asking for updates about his campaign.

State Rep. Gabe Loeffelholz, R-Platteville. Bartels testified she served as Loeffelholz's campaign treasurer in 2000 and contacted Schultz for help with Loeffelholz's campaign finance reports. She updated Schultz on how close Loeffelholz was to reaching contribution limits. Schultz also would contact her to let her know to expect checks from contributors. She said she thought Schultz worked for the state Elections Board.

Kratochwill testified he wrote a closing plan for Loeffelholz's campaign. Loeffelholz didn't return a message left at his Capitol office.

State Rep. Don Friske, R-Merrill. Ascher-Knowlton testified she struggled with campaign finance reports. She got help from Schultz, faxing documents to her and staying in weekly contact. Schultz mailed checks from political action committees to her, she said, and told her once Friske got elected he would be expected to donate money for other GOP challengers in turn.

"She was my angel. Yes, she was,'' Ascher-Knowlton told the jury.

Two caucus graphic artists testified they did work for Friske's campaign.

Friske told the AP he knew Ascher-Knowlton was getting help from Schultz on finance reports, but he thought Schultz might have been working for the state Republican Party.

"We didn't know where Sherry worked or anything Sherry was doing was illegal,'' Friske said.

He said all his campaign literature was done by Petrowski's daughter, who served as his campaign manager. He was busy working full-time and going door-to-door meeting constituents, he said.

"I put my trust in my campaign manager and my treasurer ... they were left to their job and I had mine.''

State Rep. Terri McCormick, R-Appleton. Hack testified she did campaign work for McCormick.

McCormick, who is running for Congress, denied to the AP that Hack did any work for her. She said she ran her own races.

Her campaign manager, Tracy Mangold, has issued a statement saying McCormick never "procured'' any help from a caucus graphic artist and she was considering suing Hack for slander.

State Supreme Court Justice David Prosser. Prosser was the Assembly speaker when Jensen was director of the Assembly Republican Caucus in the 1980s. Jensen testified Prosser ordered him to meet with legislators' staffs to devise plans to get them re-elected.

Prosser himself testified, saying Jensen was a man of his word.

State courts spokeswoman Amanda Todd didn't return a message seeking an interview with Prosser.

State Rep. Kitty Rhoades, R-Hudson. Cosh's reports indicate he was checking in with Rhoades' campaign status. Rhoades didn't return messages left at her Capitol office or district listing.

State Rep. Mark Pettis, R-Hertel. Smyrski testified she helped work on Pettis' campaign in 2000 while working in Kedzie's state office, but said she took leave. She also said she put Pettis' treasurer in touch with Schultz for help with campaign finances and had graphic artists at the caucus prepare campaign material for Pettis.

Cosh testified he put together campaign mailings at the caucus for Pettis and oversaw his campaign beginning in the spring of 2000 until he left to help Petrowski. His campaign field reports show Hack was working on stationary for Pettis in 2000. Pettis didn't return a message left at his Capitol office.

State Rep. Gregg Underheim, R-Oshkosh. Grant testified he did campaign literature for him. Underheim declined comment.

State Sen. Joe Leibham, R-Sheboygan. Kratochwill testified Leibham was considered a vulnerable candidate when Leibham was in the Assembly in 2000 when Kratochwill met with Jensen in his office to discuss assigning field staff. He also testified he set up TV ad shoots for Leibham that year.

Leibham didn't return messages left at his Capitol office and district listing.

State Rep. Eugene Hahn, R-Cambria. Kratochwill testified he helped set up TV ad shots for Hahn in 2000. Hahn told the AP the caucus brought in a firm to do the shoots, and half-a-dozen Republicans took turns filming at locations.

"I didn't question. I was just told to be there,'' Hahn said.

He acknowledged he got caucus help, but didn't know they were on state time.

"I win the primary, the next thing I know I got a couple people from the caucus up meeting with me and my people,'' Hahn said. "Locally, we don't know how to run a campaign. They've been at it for years. They told us what to do next ... I never gave it a thought if they went off the state payroll or were on the party payroll.''

The last thing he thought he would be doing while campaigning was analyzing his workers' conduct, he added.

"It never crossed my mind whether they were being paid by the state,'' Hahn said.

State Rep. Stephen Freese, R-Dodgeville. Kratochwill testified that he doubled as Freese's campaign manager in 1992 while working on Sen. Dale Schultz's state payroll. Jensen testified Freese was sometimes present at leadership meetings where campaigns were discussed.

Freese told the AP he was at policy meetings, but didn't remember being at any leadership meetings that were purely political. He and Jensen didn't get along because they ran against each for speaker in 1997.

He said Kratochwill worked on his campaign on nights and weekends, when he was off the state clock.

Former state Rep. Steve Foti, R-Oconomowoc. The former Assembly majority leader was charged in 2002 with felony misconduct in office for hiring Schultz. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor conduct late last year in a deal with prosecutors that called for him to testify against Jensen. Prosecutors agreed to recommend he serve 30 days in jail in return. He is scheduled to be sentenced Monday.

Former state Rep. Bonnie Ladwig, R-Racine. The former Assembly assistant majority leader was charged in 2002 with a misdemeanor ethics violation for using her position to obtain financial gain for the Republican Assembly Committee, a group that campaigns for GOP candidates. Ladwig pleaded guilty late last year in a deal with prosecutors. They agreed they would not recommend jail time in exchange for her plea. She is scheduled to be sentenced in May.

RNC ad on Feingold isn't true

Here's a surprise: The Republican National Committee plays fast and loose with the facts in the radio ad it is running to attack Sen. Russ Feingold.

FactCheck.org finds:

A GOP radio ad accuses Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin of proposing to censure President Bush "for pursuing suspected members of al Qaeda," which isn't true. Feingold has stated he supports wiretapping suspected terrorists. His measure would censure Bush for ordering wiretaps on US soil without a court warrant, for failing to notify all members of the Senate and House intelligence committees, and for "efforts to mislead the American people" about the legality of the program.

More at the FactCheck link.

Bush rewards backers with taxpayer money

Isn't that Milwaukee's Bishop Sedgwick Daniels in today's Washington Post, kissing up to the President?

Indeed it is, as part of a story about how the Bush administration has funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to groups that support Bush's policies, in what one Congressman describes as one of the biggest patronage programs in US history:

In Milwaukee, a 2004 presidential battleground state, Pentecostal Bishop Sedgwick Daniels's Holy Redeemer Institutional Church of God in Christ was awarded $626,598 in 2003 and $824,471 in 2004 from the Compassion Capital Fund. Daniels, a Bush supporter, was a 2004 Republican National Convention delegate.

Afterthought: Who says African-Americans who vote Republican are voting against their self-interest? It's certainly not true in this case.

Payback: Republican Party of Wis. got three contributions from the family of Milwaukee's Holy Redeemer Institutional Church of God: Sedgwick Daniels, $550 on 6/16/04; and $900 total from Hattie Daniels-Rush, $350 on 1/26/05 and $550 on 6/21/04. Do you think it would be a story if they gave to the Dem Party of Wis. and Doyle was handing out the checks?

Missing children in Milwaukee

Ragnar Mentaire thinks Wisconsin bloggers could help find two missing young boys who vanished two days ago in Milwaukee. The chances that anyone who reads this blog would see them are remote, but here is a link to their photos and more info.

'Catch & release Bucher' frees suburban addicts

But he can't see the bigger picture

Does Paul Bucher agree with Kathleen Falk that Wisconsin needs to reform the way our criminal justice system deals with addicts?

It certainly sounds like it. In this release about a new Waukesha County program, Bucher says:

"While we do a very good job arresting and prosecuting offenders, it is clear it is not enough. We need to do more to prevent these individuals from coming back into the system ... I am willing to look at something new...we simply cannot continue doing things the same old way because the same results are not acceptable."

This particular program is to deal with alcohol-related crimes, such as drunken driving. But the principles are much the same as what Falk has proposed for treatment of non-violent offenders with drug and alcohol problems.

The court "will integrate substance abuse treatment, sanctions and incentives with case management efforts," the release says.

Bucher has blasted Falk for her suggestion that there must be a better way to handle non-violent offenders, even setting up a Willie Horton-type website to try to frighten people into thinking Falk wants to release dangerous people into their neighborhoods. Joel McNally comments.

But it's OK with Bucher to provide treatment for repeat drunk drivers in Waukesha County. After all, it's not like they're addicted to drugs, right? They're only addicted to alcohol. No matter than anyone involved in treatment programs would say an addiction is an addiction is an addiction.

Maybe those drunk drivers aren't as frightening because they are all nice, white, Waukesha County suburbanites. Bucher's willing to try something new with them, but not even consider a broader program that could save state taxpayers $60-million a year and offer treatment and hope to addicts. Journal Sentinel editorial.

One standard for Waukesha County alcoholics, another for everyone else? Is that what we call equal justice under the law?

The world according to Glenn Grothman

Did you know that Wisconsin is graduating too many college students? There's a real glut. That's why they're leaving the state.

The problem is that it's too inexpensive to go to college, and almost anyone can afford it.

But have no fear. State Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) has proposed a constitutional amendment that will solve the problem, by increasing University of Wisconsin tuition, thereby putting a college education out of the reach of more people.

You have to read it to believe it. Carrie Lynch has more.

Maybe the non-degreed Scott Walker should make it part of his platform -- that electing him would turn back the tide of college grads.

New poll, little change for Doyle

A new SurveyUSA poll on Gov. Jim Doyle's job performance is basically identical to one taken a month ago. It's now 44-48, four points in the red. It was 45-47 last time. Results.

Not great news for Doyle. But one politician I know says everything in life is compared to what. Thirteen governors do worse than Doyle, with Ohio's Bob Taft leading the pack in negatives at 17-77. Alaska's Frank Murkowski is at 28-65, Louisiana's Kathleen Blanco at 34-63, and California's Governator at 36-61. I take some solace in the fact that three of the four are Rs -- and that I am not working on any candidate campaigns this year.

The Amtal Rule offers some advice for Doyle.

Feingold wins the netroots

Russ Feingold is President of Daily Kos blog by a wide margin. Not a representative sample, by any means, but not a bad place to start for someone who's willing to run as a progressive. Online poll results.

Meanwhile, over at betfair.com, odds of Feingold getting the nomination are 12.5 to 1, but it fluctuates. Right now that makes him sixth among the Dems.

[Hat tip: Daily Colonial. Artwork: PabloOnPolitics]

Being in love with politics ...

means never having to say you're sorry. Scott Jensen's resignation letter.

Republicans using negative voter 'ID' calls

It's hard to know how to categorize the call a friend reported getting today.

The automated call asks (in words close to these):

"If you're tired of Governor Doyle's corruption in office and ethics problems, would like to see new, fresh leadership in Madison and want to elect a new governor, press 1.

"If you support Governor Doyle and will vote to reelect him, press 2."

Curious, my Democratic friend pressed 1 to see what else the caller might have to say.

All it said was: "Paid for by the Republican Party of Wisconsin. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate committee."

If this is a voter ID call to find people who don't like Doyle, it's going to produce some bad data. Many people, like my friend, will certainly press 1 to see what happens -- and will end up on some Republican list for further contact, no doubt.

Or maybe it's not a voter ID project at all. Maybe it's a push poll, to tell voters Doyle is an unethical crook.

Auto calls are cheap these days, but it still sounds like a colossal waste of money.

TABOR: A law posing as an amendment

Bruce Murphy of Milwaukee Magazine thinks it may be a little problematic to get voters to pass Bride of TABOR. He says:

The whole idea of a 2,500-word amendment seems a travesty of our system of government. This is a law masquerading as a constitutional clause.

Is our students learning?

This blog entry was posted by someone who teaches journalism to college students:

Red America blog

So the Washington Post has created a conservative blog called Red America. This reminds me a bit of the New York Times creating a conservative beat. It's an admission they don't cover conservative issues already. Why aren't they created a blog called Blue America?

posted by Jessica McBride at 10:37:00 PM

-- R.J. Matson, Roll Call, via Cagle.

Grassroots agree with Feingold on censure

In case you needed another sign that Washington politicians are out of touch with the mainstream in this country, consider this:

Washington - The Republican National Committee says it will begin airing an ad on talk radio shows in Milwaukee and Madison this week criticizing Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold for his proposal to censure President Bush.

The ad describes Feingold as the "leader" of a group of Democrats "working against" the president's efforts to "secure our country" by monitoring terrorist communications and disrupting terrorist plots...

Feingold issued a statement late Monday that says in part:

"The President has broken the law, and the censure resolution I introduced is intended to hold him accountable. Nobody says that we shouldn't be monitoring suspected terrorists. Of course we should, and we can under current law. We have yet to hear a reasonable argument from the president or anyone else why it was necessary to break the law."

The RNC action, of course, is part of the campaign to try to isolate Feingold as some kind of far-left lunatic. But Congressional Dems haven't been much better on this issue. The only ones who agree with Feingold are the people.

The trouble for the GOP is that national polls show people split right down the middle on the question of whether to censure the President, as Feingold has proposed. That hasn't translated into much support in the Congress, as chickenshit Democrats avoid Feingold like he as avian flu. Only Sens. Tom Harkin of Iowa and Barbara Boxer of California have signed on as co-sponsors. That despite the fact that the poll show Dem voters favor censure 60% to 30%.

Stirring up listeners to Republican talk radio shows won't hurt Feingold a bit. It will help him with his Democratic base.

The report from a Shawano County town meeting:

But when Feingold made his case to censure the president, he received sustained applause from a crowd of nearly 100 people at the Belle Plaine Community Center in Shawano County.

"If you were on the phone with an al-Qaida person, I support your being wiretapped, all the time, for a long time," he told the audience. "We have laws already that allow the president to wiretap your line for 72 hours without a warrant. All he has to do is apply for that warrant. . . . The whole thing they're saying about how Senator Feingold doesn't want us to be able to wiretap. That's absolute nonsense. I support wiretapping every single person who is working with a terrorist. Just do it within the law. That's all we ask."

In an interview, Feingold said letters to his office were running 3 to 1 in favor of his censure position...

Vermont's two senators, Democrat Patrick Leahy and Independent Jim Jeffords, support hearings onFeingold'ss censure motion, and others will come out of the woodwork.

The Tomah Journal, probably soon to be called the Tomah Daily Worker by the wingnuts, has this to say:

Nobody argues against eavesdropping on terror suspects. Nobody argues that warrants shouldn't be classified or post-dated under exigent circumstances. However, it doesn't take a pacifist to insist that a magistrate -- someone who doesn’t serve at the pleasure of the president -- review electronic eavesdropping requests. It's not only the law; it's the only way to conduct surveillance consistent with the Fourth Amendment. Senator Feingold is right to insist that the President honor both the law and Constitution. If Feingold's fellow Senators won't vindicate his stance, history will.

The paper is absolutely right on.

You say McCarthyism, I say McBrideism

Paul Soglin seems surprised to find that Jessica McBride practices McCarthyism. This time her target is supporters of anti-war referendums on the April ballot, and she finds Red links under the bed.

Soglin apparently missed McBride's earlier posts sliming Cindy Sheehan, here and here. It's the same kind of guilt by association and innuendo that Tailgunner Joe used regularly to smear anyone who questioned him. In the eyes of McCarthy and McBride, everyone is a commie, a fellow traveler, a dupe or a traitor.

In her defense, as is usually the case, she was just following the lead of her hero, mentor and protector, Charlie Sykes, who threw the first slimeball.

All in the Wisconsin tradition.

Surprise! Clarke to speak to Dems tonight

Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke has just accepted an invitation at the North East Dems meeting tonight. His primary opponent, Vince Bobot, also will speak.

The meeting is at the Oakland Trattoria, 2856 N Oakland Ave., at 7 p.m.

Clarke, who hangs out with and supports Republicans for office but runs as a Dem in Milwaukee County, just accepted the invitation late Monday afternoon.

Bush to Cleveland: Anybody working?

The President still knows how to work a crowd.

-- Steve Sack, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, via Cagle.

Welcome to Victory in Iraq, Year 4

I'm back, just in time for Year 4 of Victory in Iraq.

It's great to learn from Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld that things are going so well. A few of us were beginning to worry that things were getting a little bogged down, that the Iraqi people wanted us to leave, and that military and civilian casualties were likely to continue to mount indefinitely.

Even the former prime minister of Iraq, Ayad Allawi, was having a few doubts, saying the country is edging toward "the point of no return."

"We are losing a day as an average 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more," Allawi said on BBC's "Sunday AM" program. "If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is."

I'm reassured now, though.

The Commander in Chief has assured Americans that his administration is pursuing a strategy "that will lead to victory in Iraq."

He should know, right? Actually, I was reassured just to find out that we had a strategy. I wonder what it is.

It's a shame the New York Times is still so negative. In a Sunday editorial, the paper said:

The last three years have shown how little our national leaders understood Iraq, and have reminded us how badly attempts at liberation from the outside have gone in the past. Given where we are now, the question of whether a botched invasion created a lost opportunity might be moot, except for one thing. The man who did the botching, Donald Rumsfeld, is still the secretary of defense...

And:

The Iraq debacle ought to serve as a humbling lesson for future generations of American leaders — although, if our leaders were capable of being humbled, they could have simply looked back to Vietnam.

All Together Now...

Welcome back, Xoff.

Xoff Files, but no Xoff till March 20

Leaving town and the Internet for a week, much as I hate to miss the Jensen verdict, the Gathering of the Nuts, and Blogfest.

I leave the Xoff Files in the hands of a capable committee, whose members seemed to strike a few nerves and provoke some strong reactions during my last hiatus.

Back on March 20th. Enjoy the break. I know I will.

Jess has a secret...or does she?

Looks like the big story coming out of the wispolitics.com blog summit may have happened after the summit.

Seems Jess McBride was having some rounds with the bloggers afterward and let slip some scoop she has.

The Badger Blog Alliance posts:

Jessica, HUSH!
Note to Jessica McBride:

When drinking at a table of bloggers, do not let any secrets slip.

Those of you who heard the scoop,keep it under your hat.

Are the blogs really doing their jobs if they keep it under their hat?

So what's the secret? Who knows. Could it be that she would soon be drinking and driving in her hubbies county?

Anti-War protests reflect majority opinion and leave the right wing on the fringe

"It is unfortunate that we are in civil war. We are losing each day as an average 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more," Allawi told the BBC. "If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is."

--Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi

"A NEWSWEEK poll shows President Bush's approval rating dropping to new lows on domestic issues and rising public anger over Iraq and homeland security. The poll shows that only 29 percent of the people questioned approved Bush’s handling of the situation in Iraq. Fully 65 percent disapprove. His image as an effective leader in the war on terror is tarnished, with less than half the public (44 percent) approving of the way he’s handling terrorism and homeland security."

Hat tips to politicalwire,

"Americans "have grown more pessimistic" about the Iraq war, a new Harris Interactive poll shows, "with a majority saying they think civil war in Iraq is likely within the next six months."

When asked about President Bush's handling of Iraq, 68% say he's is doing a "poor" or "only fair" job, while 30% say he is doing an "excellent" or "pretty good" job.""

A new NPR survey finds Republicans "losing their stranglehold on national security and foreign policy and shows Democrats have a unique opportunity to get heard on keeping America safe."

In every key area -- the Iraq war, foreign ownership of US ports, and homeland security -- Democrats come out on top.

"These results are a reflection of Bush’s collapse and the growing determination of Americans to vote for change. There has been a tectonic shift in the electorate with two thirds of the country now wanting to move in a new direction."

President Bush's approval rate is just 39%, with 58% disapproving of his performance.

Tax and Spend Republicans

Republicans have held control of the White House for nearly 5 and half years and have controlled Congress now going on 12.

So how do Republicans balance YOUR checkbook?

Since, Bush took office with the help of a GOP Congress, the national debt has grown $2.5 trillion...that's trillion with a big T, as Bush has requested to increase the limit four times during his tenure-- boosts of $450 billion in 2002, a record $984 billion in 2003 and $800 billion in 2004.

When Mr Bush took office he inherited a $236 billion budget surplus. Bill Clinton, his predecessor, had used budget surpluses to pay down some of the national debt in his last two years in office while Bush has spent like a drunken cowboy. The budget deficit for this year and next will be $350 billion.

So who has Bush and the GOP Congress put our children and grandchildren in debt to? Foreign governments. Japan is the biggest creditor, at $668 billion. China, the second-biggest, recently increased its stake by $40 billion to $263 billion.

So the Bush legacy looks more and more like one that is defined by having future generations give foreign countries their hard earned tax dollars to pay off today's tax cuts for the wealthy.

Jeff Stone and Others Are Secretly Plotting To Steal Mitchell Field

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports Saturday that sneaky state legislators, politically-connected lawyers and lobbyists at the MMAC have been secretly plotting to snatch the airport away from Milwaukee County to stop local taxpayers from managing what's in their own backyard.

Among the cabal leaders: State Rep. Jeff Stone, (R-Greendale) - - the same Jeff Stone who hopes to run for Milwaukee County Executive after Scott Walker's campaign for Governor dies in the September primary.

Let's hope that Stone's behind-the-scenes ploy to take away the airport's control from county residents - - the same county residents he'd 'represent' as county executive - - quashes his plans to run for county exec. The last thing Milwaukee County needs after the Walker years is another chief executive whose concerns about the county are secondary.


The state legislature under the GOP's legislative autocracy is making a habit of stepping into local Milwaukee affairs and onto local taxpayers.

State-mandated pay for fired and criminally-charged Milwaukee cops. Excessive payments per pupil from city taxpayers mandated by the state to choice-program schools. And now the scheme to hijack the airport and hand it over to a regional body - - all at the state's insistence.

Can you imagine the uproar if legislators mandated the handover of another Wisconsin city or county's airport to a new-fangled regional authority, or meddled with their police budgeting or school property tax levies?

Local city and county taxpayers need to step up their resistance (Stone says he will push the bill next year) to these state power grabs. Mayor Barrett fought the good fight on the police and school finances, but will we hear one peep of protest out of Walker, our absentee and opportunistic county executive?

And kudos to Milwaukee County Supervisor Richard D. Nyklewicz Jr., whose open record requests produced some of the information that the Journal Sentinel used in its story.

While Stone and others were using their influence and power to keep information about the airport takeover away from the public, and to ask lobbyists, not legislative staffers, to draft the enabling legislation, Nyklewizc was doing just the opposite.

Milwaukee-to-Madison Round-Trip

Made that boring drive back and forth again today.

Having lived in either Madison or Milwaukee for nearly 40 years, I can say without fear of contradiction that failing to re-open passenger rail between both cities has been a huge and continuing failure by state, regional and local planners.

It is part of a pattern that keeps modern rail transportation opportunties away from southeastern Wisconsin.

Several years ago, WisDOT estimated that the railbed between the two cities could be brought up to passenger rail standards for $33 million. Compared to many other public investments, $33 million was a bargain.

But the planning was buried by highway-building special interests and the legislators they have in their deep pockets, so the two major cities in the state, their business communities, universities and tourists are still without this basic tool.

Except for AMTRAK's Empire Builder that runs through the area without stopping between Milwaukee and Columbus, the area between Madison and Milwaukee is a passenger-rail free zone.

To narrow-minded talk radio hosts and their fearful suburban constituencies: congratulations on helping keep the region economically stifled.

The opposition to rail service is centered west of Milwaukee in Waukesha - - even to rail transit that would primarily serve the City of Milwaukee.

That is why 'regional cooperation' is now so slow to materialize - - Waukesha's having blocked light rail within the city and county of Milwaukee - - and why so many people and policy-makers in Milwaukee are leery of working with Waukesha interests when it comes to water supplies and other matters.

Waukesha's opposition was led by the soon-to-be-gone Scott Jensen - - a stance that was politically gratuitous and short-sighted at the time and now for several reasons looks completely idiotic.

Just wait until the Zoo Interchange and I-94 through Waukesha County are torn up during years of planned expansion and reconstruction. People out there will be screaming for transit. They'll demand options.

But folks...that train left the station.

And the higher that gasoline prices climb (does anyone think that the trend will be anything other than up-up-up?), the more that light rail would be attractive, especially as bedroom community housing is being built on every available acre of farm land 30 and 40 miles west of downtown Milwaukee.

High-end housing is sprouting at Pabst Farms near Oconomowoc off I-94, but when gasoline hits $3.50 a gallon, are those home-owning commuters going to relish filling up the Yukon with $100 worth of fuel? There aren't even bus routes out there, let alone connector services to light, or so-called heavy/commuter rail.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda.

Light rail remains an easy rhetorical target for talk radio jocks even though it is a growing success in Minneapolis and St. Louis, and cities from San Diego to Denver. Smaller communities, like Kansas City, are planning for light rail, modern trolleys or other forms of rail transportation.

There are some positive developments on the rail front, but not near Waukesha.

Commuter rail - - in the form of METRA - - will be extended from Chicago, through Kenosha and Racine Counties. to downtown Milwaukee, and Mayor Tom Barrett is proposing an additional extension through the Valley and into western Milwaukee County.

That's good news for commuters, and for retail and housing development that will take place along the line, and near the stations.

But talk radio and some of its allies - - hidebound and locked into an ideological position against public transportation spending (other than more highways) - - overlooked the business opportunities surrounding light rail investment.

Yes, investment. That's the right word.

Talk radio and politicians like Scott Walker end up positioning themselves as anti-growth and anti-business in the rail transit debate. Walker opposed light rail so he could stay on the right side of the right-wing talk radio programs that created his County Executive candidacy.

Walker is still opposing the Milwaukee Connector guided-bus system - - even though it would enhance his county, add jobs and panache to the city and its environs, and boost his county bus system.

Go figure

On the other hand, it's a real plus for Milwaukee and for the hometown favorite, Midwest Airlines, that AMTRAK now stops at Mitchell Airport. That brings airline passengers in Northern Illinois an attractive alternative to O'Hare.

That's how rail transportation spending functions as an investment.

And a new multi-purpose transportation hub will replace the aging, demoralizing AMTRAK station in downtown Milwaukee.

That means there will be additional transportation options into and south of the downtown, and perhaps somewhat to the west for commuters and some tourists - - but it's an incomplete upgrade because it will not extend through Waukesha with either light or commuter rail.

And there will be no AMTRAK, or METRA extensions, to Madison anytime soon, either.

In an era of rising fuel costs, in a political climate where conservatives purportedly push "choices," in a state that needs job development and a push forward, that's nuts.

Ask after lunch

With Jensen I could see how the right wingnuts would stand up and defend him for breaking the law, but it's kind bizaro world when the right wing is standing with Hillary on Bush's breaking the law.

The DC Dems are really embarrassing themselves.

"Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) brushed past the press pack, shaking her head and waving her hand over her shoulder. When an errant food cart blocked her entrance to the meeting room, she tried to hide from reporters behind the 4-foot-11 Barbara Mikulski (Md.).

"Ask her after lunch," offered Clinton's spokesman, Philippe Reines. But Clinton, with most of her colleagues, fled the lunch out a back door as if escaping a fire."

A plurality of Americans favor censure

The GOP the right wingnuts have been in a tizzy about Feingold censure resolution. They don't understand why a member of congress would want to hold the President accountable for breaking the law. It seems that to this crowd the proper role of Congress is to jump into impeachment mode only when POTUS has had an affair.

The McSykes crowd has measured support for Feingold's move by the number of DC politicians running away from questions about "W's" illegal domestic wire tap program where the administration has been eavesdropping on innocent Americans.

Well a poll has come out that has measured public opinion on the issue. The same sort of public opinion that never seems to get in the way of the right thinking their always right, and blindly defending Bush no matter how incompetent or corrupt he is.

"A new poll finds that a plurality of Americans favor plans to censure President George W. Bush, while a surprising 42% favor moves to actually impeach the President.

A poll taken March 15, 2006 by American Research Group found that among all adults, 46% favor Senator Russ Feingold's (D-WI) plan to censure President George W. Bush, while just 44% are opposed. Approval of the plan grows slightly when the sample is narrowed to voters, up to 48% in favor of the Senate censuring the sitting president."

It's getting harder and harder to find a national issue where the McSykes crowd is on the side of the majority. Makes you wonder why they have a monopoly on the airwaves.

Waukesha County Board Downsizing: How Low Can They Go?

I'm not anxious to drive up the traffic counts over there on the right side of the local blogging world - - but find your way into their matrix and read through their hilarious thrashing about determining the Politically Correct number of supervisors if and when that great big ol' 35-member Waukesha County Board of Supervisors is downsized.

35 elected representatives, even as the population is growing in the county? Way too much democracy. And those pesky elections? All that voting? Stop it , for crying out loud!

Some want 11, some want more - - the numbers 19 and 25 have been spoken for. It's such a daggone puzzle that the CRG, the original anti-government crowd, suggested slowing down and thinking it through. Well, you can imagine how that's going down.

So a wacky contest of sorts - - part politics, part numerology - - has broken out on the Right fringe to choose the Right number, and at the same time to figure out just who's speaking for the smaller-is-better crowd in Waukesha. To win, you gotta have the right number. But what is it?

Thirteen is available, but it's got a taint. Seventeen is still on the board. Why no one's bet on 21 yet is a real mystery, but who said the slash-and-burn government crowd was a rational bunch?

Sources report that the most-desired number is actually 24, but Kiefer Sutherland is rumored to have sent key Waukeshanians a coded reminder that 24 is a quorum-defeating even number, and that odd is where the movement should remain, for consistency's sake, until and unless further instructions are received.

Look for this issue to be debated ad nauseum at this weekend's BlogoSummit at The Country Springs Hotel conference center, in Waukesha County.

Attendees are advised not to waste their time looking for the springs near Waukesha, a locale that used to be called "Spring City." Sprawl has dried them up.

Rightists Miss the Point on Censure Issue

Some Rightist bloggers and GOP pols are crowing about the lack of support among Democratic electeds for Russ Feingold's resolution of censure for President Bush.

The Righties are spinning that Republicans can use the Feingold resolution to rally around Bush and turn things around.

Forget it. Polls are showing the Bush presidency flat-lining. Too many failures, too much botched leadership. The public has decided that Bush is in over his head and that Cheney is an albatross. The only unanswered questions are how many seats the GOP will lose in the '06 Congressional elections and whether the Dems can find a winning candidate in '08.

The Feingold resolution isn't going to save Bush. It will help the Dems sort out who they are, and as I said in an earlier posting, the idea will gain currency, much as Feingold's opposition to the Patriot Act USA became more acceptable as time went on.

Avoiding More Waukesha-Type Sprawl

You've heard of Smart Growth? This is Really Smart Growth:

The Washington County board voted 17-11 on Tuesday to begin the first county-wide development rights purchase program in Wisconsin to minimize sprawl construction and maximize farming.

This is good news for southeast Wisconsin, where the water table is already under great pressure from over-pumping in Waukesha County - - while streams and other surface waters, including Lake Michigan, are suffering everything from species invasions, to polluted runoff from roads and parking lots, to sewage overflows.

Ag lands in Waukesha County are disappearing at a fast clip: Washington County has decided that one county-wide sprawling mess in the region is enough, and is willing to spend public dollars to finance land preservation for the common good.

Way to go!

Feingold's Bold Move

People (the GOP) bashing and/or ignoring (mainstream Dems) Russ Feingold over the maverick Democrat's proposal to censure President Bush should remember the last noteworthy time that Feingold took an isolated position: his vote against the so-called Patriot Act.

It didn't take long for plenty of liberals and conservatives to realize that Feingold was right and they were wrong.

As the consequences of Bush's arrogance on the Iraq war and domestic wiretapping become more costly, (and don't forget the administration's indifferent response to Katrina), the wisdom of Feingold's censure motion will become more apparent.

The voters will censure Bush in 2008 by voting in an administration far different than what passed for leadership the previous eight years, and Feingold's effort to have started the censuring in 2006 will look prescient.

Is the President a King?

Well the right wingnuts are all riled up with Feingold's call for accountabilty of the Bush administration's domestic spying on innocent Americans. And boy are they going after him in an attempt to bully Democrats. Today, Feingold called on D's to find backbone.

"Democrats run and hide" when the administration invokes the war on terrorism, Feingold told reporters. "I'm amazed at Democrats ... cowering with this president's numbers so low," Feingold said.

Blogs on the left are not happy with the DC Dems and have stood behind Feingold on this one.

This is a perfect example of the divide between the thinking of beltway D's (insiders) and the real people out in the heartland (outsiders.) This really has very little to do with left, center, right politics. It's about the timidity of the DC insiders and the outsiders yearning for conviction, purpose and moral clarity from Democrats.

What's Left has a must read.

"History will mark this as the right thing to do. This is the move of a conservative, not a liberal. Conservatives are the ones that are supposedly for keeping government power in check and out of the private lives of the American people. The conservative wing of the Republican Party should have been the ones leading the charge on this one."

As I said in a previous post, the right feels threatened by Feingold's appeal to their base on this issue as Bush's support on national security and the War in Iraq weaken. In essence, the almighty terrorism trump card isn't what it used to be.

It's unlikey Feingold would have pulled the trigger on this unless he was on firm ground.

You be the judge.

FACT SHEET

Senator Feingold’s resolution of censure condemns the President for breaking the law by authorizing an illegal wiretapping program, and for misleading Congress and the American people about the existence and legality of that program.

The President Broke the Law by Wiretapping Outside of FISA

It Is Illegal to Wiretap Without the Requisite Warrant or Court Order: The law is clear that the criminal wiretap statute and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) “shall be the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance . . . and the interception of domestic wire, oral, and electronic communications may be conducted.”

FISA Has an Emergency Exception: The Administration has indicated that it ignored FISA because the application process takes too long. In fact, in an emergency where the Attorney General believes that surveillance must begin before a court order can be obtained, FISA permits him to immediately authorize the surveillance as long as the government goes to the court within 72 hours. Prior to 2001, the emergency wiretap period was only 24 hours. The Administration requested and received the increase to 72 hours in intelligence authorization legislation that passed in late 2001.

FISA Provides for Wartime Situations: FISA also permits the Attorney General to authorize warrantless electronic surveillance in the United States during the 15 days following a declaration of war, to allow time to consider any amendments to FISA necessitated by a wartime emergency.

The Administration Has Used FISA Thousands of Times Since 9/11: Administration officials have criticized FISA, but they have obtained thousands of warrants approved by the FISA court since 9/11, and have almost never had a warrant request rejected by that court.

The President Made Misleading Arguments Defending his Wiretapping Program

Military Force Resolution Did Not Authorize Wiretapping: The President has argued that Congress gave him authority to wiretap Americans on U.S. soil without a warrant when it passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force after September 11, 2001. There is no language in the resolution and no evidence to suggest that it was intended to give the President authority to order these warrantless wiretaps. Warrantless domestic surveillance is not an “incident of war” akin to detaining an enemy soldier on the battlefield as the Administration has argued.

In fact, Congress passed the Patriot Act just six weeks after September 11 to expand the government’s powers to conduct surveillance of suspected terrorists and spies. Yet the Administration did not ask for, nor did the Patriot Act include, any change to FISA’s requirement of judicial approval for wiretaps of Americans in the United States.

Prohibition on Wiretapping Limits Executive Power: The President’s assertion of inherent executive power is also wrong. The President has extensive authority when it comes to national security and foreign affairs, but given the clear prohibition in FISA, that authority does not include the power to wiretap American citizens on American soil without a warrant.

Executive Branch Review of Wiretapping Is Not Enough: The President has argued that periodic executive branch review provides an adequate check on the program. But Congress when it passed FISA explicitly rejected the idea that the executive branch should be fully entrusted to conduct national security wiretaps on its own – a power that the executive had abused in the past. In addition, the Administration has said that NSA employees decide whose communications to tap. Executive branch employees are no substitute for FISA Court judges.

Congress Did Not Approve This Program: The extremely limited briefings of the President’s warrantless surveillance programs to a handful of Congressional leaders did not constitute Congressional oversight, much less approval. In fact, the failure of the President to keep the Congressional Intelligence Committees “fully and currently informed of all intelligence activities” was a violation of the National Security Act.

The President Made Misleading Public Statements about Administration Wiretapping

“Finally, we need to renew the critical provisions of the Patriot Act that protect our civil liberties. The Patriot Act was written with clear safeguards to ensure the law is applied fairly. The judicial branch has a strong oversight role. Law enforcement officers need a federal judge's permission to wiretap a foreign terrorist's phone, a federal judge's permission to track his calls, or a federal judge's permission to search his property. Officers must meet strict standards to use any of these tools. And these standards are fully consistent with the Constitution of the U.S.”

--President George Bush, June 9, 2005, in Columbus, Ohio

“A couple of things that are very important for you to understand about the Patriot Act. First of all, any action that takes place by law enforcement requires a court order. In other words, the government can't move on wiretaps or roving wiretaps without getting a court order. Now, we've used things like roving wiretaps on drug dealers before. Roving wiretaps mean you change your cell phone. And yet, we weren't able to use roving wiretaps on terrorists. And so what the Patriot Act said is let's give our law enforcement the tools necessary, without abridging the Constitution of the United States, the tools necessary to defend America.”

--President George Bush, July 14, 2004, in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin

“Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.”

--President George Bush, April 20, 2004, in Buffalo, New York

Bush endorses Feingold's timetable for Iraq

As Dubya's poll numbers have hit new lows this week (In a Washington Post-ABC News poll this month, 65 percent said Bush has no Iraq plan) he made a major shift in his Iraq policy and is now talking about benchmarks and a timetable for bringing troops home from Iraq with a target date of the end of this year.

This is what our "junior senator" has been talking about for the last 9 months, but when he did it was attacked by the administration and the right as "cut and run" and as way of telling enemy when we are leaving.

The Washington Post has the the story,

"President Bush vowed yesterday to turn over most of Iraq to newly trained Iraqi troops by the end of this year, setting a specific benchmark as he kicked off a fresh drive to reassure Americans alarmed by the recent burst of sectarian violence.

Bush, who has largely resisted concrete timelines as the Iraq war dragged on longer than he expected, outlined the target in the first of a series of speeches intended to lay out his strategy for victory."

Can we expect the McSykes crowd to say that Bush is turning his back on our troops like they did when Feingold made the same proposals last year?

What Dubya is talking about sounds very familiar.

"Feingold proposes a gradual withdraw of U.S. troops from Iraq. Feingold proposes December 31, 2006 as the target date for military completion in Iraq. Feingold believes that a clear timeline would undermine recruiting efforts of insurgents, encourage Iraqi transistion of power, and create a broader discussion of pressing national security issues. Feingold feels "obligated to help jump start the process by proposing a significant goal for bringing U.S. forces home from Iraq."

Gard and Dick

From wispolitics, "Veep Dick Cheney encouraged attendees at a fundraiser
for 8th CD candidate John Gard to boo U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold."

Cheney's approval ratings are at 19%. Feingold's are at 56%. You do the math.

Dick says of Gard, "He is exactly the kind of person we need more of in Washington D.C."

Can we expect Gard to be campaigning with Ryan Longwell this weekend?

The Wisconsin Revolution

From the Wisconsin State Journal,

"The anti-war movement in Wisconsin is alive and expecting a busy weekend, if the schedule of vigils and pickets, rallies and gatherings everywhere from Hayward to West Bend to the Wisconsin Dells is any indication."

The main Madison event this weekend, Home Improvement Rally, Set America's House in Order, is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. Saturday on the Library Mall, with the rally to be held at 2 p.m. in the Orpheum Theater on State Street.

A schedule of events around the state is available at www.wnpj.org.

On Gard With Cheney

I'm not sure if I've ever seen coverage of such an odd political event as Vice-President Cheney's appearance at that big-dollar John Gard fundraiser.

Did people turn out to see Cheney because of the rumors that he will resign/get booted (per Peggy Noonan, and later, the right-wing Insight magazine) after the November, 2006 elections, and this might have been folks' only chance to see him?

Especially in a birdshot-free zone?

Or was it a different kind of curiosity: the opportunity to see someone who has actually polled a recent approval rating of 19% - - lower than, say, a convicted Vice-President (Spiro Agnew, 43%) and an all-around wierd guy (Michael Jackson, 25%), but to be fair - - higher than Paris Hilton's 15%?

Hard to say: people are tough to figure - - especially Gard, who wanted to be seen and photographed with a pariah.

Bush-Cheney Smackdown

A new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll has Dubya hitting a new low.

Makes for a good day to have the Vice President campaign for your congressional run.

"Growing dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq has driven President Bush's approval rating to a new low of 36 percent, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Monday."

The good news for Bush is that his disapproval number is holding steady at 60%.

"Only 38 percent said they believe the nearly 3-year-old war was going well for the United States, down from 46 percent in January, while 60 percent said they believed the war was going poorly."

57% of Americans now believe that the March 2003 invasion of Iraq was a mistake and over half believe that the Democrats would do a better job of handling the war in Iraq. (Note to McBride, you might want to adjust that theory on the GOP and national security.)

And here's the kicker, two-thirds, 67 percent, of respondents thought Bush did not have a clear plan for handling the situation in Iraq.

Keep giving those speeches "W."

And if Cheney wants to move here and campaign for Gard full-time, bring it on, Gard has a second home in Peshtigo Dick could stay at.

Blame the Judge

A big part of the spin on the Jensen conviction by the McSykes crowd is to attack the judge. What's ironic is that they are complaining that the judge wasn't an activist on behalf of the Jensen defense.

Attacking the judiciary is something that has become something of a rant from the right when the law doesn't happen fit their political agenda. Last week they were making a big deal out of the fact that Diane Sykes, a judge and Charlie Sykes second wife, was attacking the judiciary.

Scott over at Brewtown politico has a post on a speech that former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Conner gave last week where she takes anti-judiciary advocates like Sykes and Sykes to task.

Raw Story has the story,

"O'Connor said we must be ever-vigilant against those who would strongarm
the judiciary into adopting their preferred policies."

The Reagan appointed justice is right.

Russ Stirs it Up

Looks like Feingold has done more than just get under Rick Graber's skin. Over at Daily Kos, which gets over a half million hits a day, our "Junior Senator," as Cheney called him today, has really stired up the netroots with his call for accountabilty of W's illegal domestic spying on innocent American's.

Feingold's post has recieved over 400 comments and an open thread has gone over 400 as well.

What do you think matters more, what the self-proclaimed "champion of the blogosphere" Sykes says on his blog or what real people are saying on Kos.

Charlie, how many hits do you get a day? Do tell.

WI GOP Stands Up for Illegal Spying on You

The Wisconsin GOP planted itself firmly in support of domestic spying on Americans today with their over-the-top and silly attack on Feingold.

Rick Graber tries to make the case that for us to fight terrorism, we need to conduct illegal and secret wiretaps on innocent Americans and that the President is above the law and should have no accountabilty anyone.

I think there are many in the GOP's base that might have a differant idea of freedom and a system of checks and balances than Graber.

It's clear Feingold really gets under the WI GOP's skin when he starts talking to their base better than they do.

GOP Targets Jensen and Schultz with Voter ID

Will the GOP Voter ID proposal passed last week by the legislature to change the constitution prevent convicted felons like Scott Jensen and Sherry Schultze from voting?

What's to say they can't just show up to the polls with an ID and vote? How does this bill prevent that?

Jensen's Resignation Announcement Appropriate

Scott Jensen's announced 3/21 resignation from the Assembly is appropriate, given his three felony/one misdemeanor convictions this past weekend.

It is also a smart tactical signal of responsibility to the judge and the beginning, I predict, of an organized campaign by Jensen and his supporters for a minimal sentence.

With Brian Burke and Chuck Chvala getting confinement of six and nine months respectively after plea bargains, I can't imagine Jensen getting anything less, and I could see the prosecution asking for more, given Jensen's decision to take the charges to trial. We'll see.

And as The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel correctly reports today on its front page, the focus now shifts to the many politicos whose names came up during the trial. Jensen's case could be the end of the matter, or the next phase of active reporting and campaigning.

Since it's an election year, it's more likely that the campaign spots involving any number of names who were named are already being cut.

Don't stop Capitol cleanup now

The conviction of former Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen on three felonies, and Republican stalwart Sherry Schultz on one, must be the beginning of the cleanup of corrupt political behavior, not the end.

A jury has spoken up on their involvement in a series of illegal activities that involved spending taxpayer's money on political campaigning.

Now the public must speak up to eradicate the corrupt but not necessarily illegal thinking that got Jensen and Schultz to where they are today: convicted felons awaiting sentencing.

The corrupt thinking is an "us" v. "them" philosophy that pervades state politics today. What politicians do is assemble enough special interests in the "us" column to win an election or win a majority in their house of the Legislature.

It doesn't make any difference how wacky one of these groups is, or how contrary its views are to those of the citizens in general. Citizens in general don't vote -- or at least enough of them don't vote so they're ciphers in the cynical calculus of election strategy as practiced by Scott Jensen and his cohorts.

The caucus scandal merely moved the cynical calculus of "us" v. "them" politics out of legislative offices and into the private sector. Sherry Schultz, for example, got a $94,000-a-year job with the State Republican Party. This says tons about the ethical sensitivity of the State Republican Party. Maybe Schultz can stay on the payroll if she is sent to prison.

Of course, the Wlisconsin Republican Party is not alone. The number of ethically disabled people who tromped through Judge Steven Ebert's courtroom was truly amazing. At the top of the list was Supreme Court Justice David Prosser, who demonstrated in his testimony that he doesn't know the difference between right and wrong, between character and charlatanism (if that's a word), between the public trust and betrayal of the public trust. Prosser should resign from the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

But, most of all, everyone associated with the abuse of power Jensen's conviction represented should resign from office. Not because they're all a bunch of crooks, but because politics should be about the best and the brightest, not the crassest, most servile and dumbest.

People who serve in public office should consider it the highest honor of their lives, not an opportunity to pay back political allies and plot the next political victory.

The sad thing about Jensen is that a brilliant human being who led a blessed life didn't have anything better to do with it than play Machiavelli. The tragedy is that he squandered the opportunity to do things for the state of Wisconsin that (I know it's hard for political animals to believe this is possible) cross party lines.

It's time for Jensen's colleagues who didn't get caught, and even for those who didn't do anything illegal, to turn over a new leaf and to start working for the people who pay their salaries, not the people who finance their campaigns.

W's Groundhog Day

Last week a Strategic Vision poll of Wisconsin showed that only 36% of people approved of W's handling of the War in Iraq.

The poll also showed that most people wanted the U.S. to withdraw all troops from Iraq in the next six months and did not approve of his handling of the war on terrorism.

What's a guy to do?

Wapo has the answer,

President Bush plans to begin a series of speeches next week again explaining the administration's strategy for winning the war in Iraq, as the White House returns to a familiar tactic to allay growing public pessimism about the war that has helped keep the president's approval rating near its historic low."

Doesn't this sound familiar?

Perhaps the problem is not the "explaining" of the strategy it's that they don't have one.

Scooting Over The Top

So some conservative/Republican bloggers are defending convicted State Rep. Scott Jensen (R-Town of Brookfield) by attacking the judicial system.

Emotionally, that's understandable - - but politically and tactically, that's an error because it makes these conservative opinion-makers look whiney and hypocritical.

Conservative politics nationally and in Wisconsin have been built on personal responsibility. Whether schooling your kids, providing for your family, getting ahead at work, or saving for retirement, the mantra has consistently been:

Take responsibility.

Make choices, live by the consequences, enjoy the outcome of your good decisions, but don't blame other people or institutions when things don't go your way - - because the decisions were yours.

Intertwined is (was?) respect for the law. Hasn't it been Democrats who have had to fend off criticism from the right about being "soft on crime?"

Arguing that Jensen selectively was prosecuted forgets that Democratic leaders caught up in the scandal were also charged and convicted - - Democrats who made bad choices and accepted their responsibility by entering guilty pleas.

Bashing the judicial system for convicting Jensen also overlooks interviews with jurors who said they convicted Jensen on the evidence, including testimony from Jensen that they said was not believable.

These were regular citizens upholding law and order: why make them targets?

Seeing their champion take such a hard fall is no doubt painful, but Jensen's allies are weakening themselves by turning their backs on the law and the philosophy of personal responsbility.

It's hard to imagine that some conservatives could have figured out a way to continue to offer Democrats a PR advantage in the wake of Jensen's decision to go to trial and in his resulting conviction, but it seems they have, twice:

First, there is Republican Assembly Speaker John Gard's indecision about whether to remove Jensen from the Committee on Joint Finance.

Now there are Jensen supporters pointing the finger of blame far from where it is deserved.

BREAKING: Sykes Defends Jensen

After 24 hrs, Sykes has spoken and the talking points from the self proclaimed "champion of the blogosphere" are as follows.

1. Blame and Attack the Judge and Jury. It seems the judge wasn't as much of an activist as Sykes would have liked. And the jury, well those are just ordinary people, what do they know.

2. Keep on saying everyone did it.

3. Jensen is a victim.

Pretty predictable stuff but perhaps what is most offensive is Sykes suggestion that this prosecution and the jury's verdit "inflicts almost unimaginable pain on his family."

Let's be very clear, Scott Jensen, and no else, has inflicted this pain on his family.

Talk about playing the victim card...give me a break. Where's the demand for personal responsibility from the right?

As expected Sykes has chosen Jensen over taxpayers.

Top Cop or Top Hypocrite

No word from "top-cop" wanna-be Paul Bucher on the Jensen conviction. One has to wonder if Bucher was the DA in charge of this case, would he have pursued it. And if he was Attorney General would he have gone after Jensen? Probably not on both counts.

Bucher has no comment on what the MJS today called "a stunning picture of a GOP election and re-election machine paid for by taxpayers." You have to wonder if Bucher has what it takes to be the state's attorney general and really believes no one is above the law.

It's pretty clear that Bucher's wife was rooting for Jensen to beat the charges and wanted to see Jensen walk. It would be a pretty sad day if we had an attorney general who felt the same way.

Now that it has been proven and a jury has decided that state taxpayers were paying for the political campaigns of the GOP Assembly you would expect that Bucher might show some outrage. After all, he made a big deal about Kathleen Falk having one staffer take a leave to work on her campaign for one month. leave where she was not funded by taxpayers but by Falks campaign. Falk reimbursed the county for the staffers health care costs. On the other hand, not one Assembly member who used taxpayer funded campaign staff has re-imbursed the state one penny for using taxpayer funded staffers to work on their campaigns. Not even one penny for staffers who were shown to not take leaves for their campaign work.

Can we expect that Bucher will call for GOP assembly members to start reimbursing the state for the taxpayer funded health care costs of their campaign workers? Don't bet on it. But it might be worth a flagrant act of journalism to ask.

"Standing up for what's right"

Almost 24 hrs since the Scooter Jensen conviction came in and still not a peep from the right-wingnut blogosphere.

Charlie Sykes, self proclaimed "champion of the Wisconsin Blogosphere" who "stands up for what's right" can't seem to figure out how to defend the indefensible and now convicted Jensen for fleecing taxpayers. Of course, the expected spin will go something like, "everyone did it" and "it wasn't pay to play." Sykes doesn't seem to have a problem with Jensen and the Assemby GOP fleecing of taxpayers, so the next time he talks about protecting taxpayers keep in mind that when he was given the chance to stand up for taxpayers and personal responsibility, Sykes chose to stand with Jumpsuit Jensen.

Not a word from McBride who is never short on the blabbing. Perhaps she is waiting for her marching orders from "champion." Look for a "I'm a mother, candidate wife, busy state bureaucrat," excuse for her silence.

And only silence from Fraley, Jordhal, McIlheran and just about the entire lot of the Sykes blog roll.

I did find this however.

"My thoughts and prayers go out to Scott Jensen and his family." - Kevin at Lakeshore Laments.

"Aw, shoot." -Wendy at Boots and Sabers.

"The political witch hunt that was the Scott Jensen trial is over."-Badger Blogger .

At Badger Blogger they proclaim "Covering Wisconsin the way the media won't. Covering the media, the way they fear!" Seems to me that they won't cover this because they are afraid.

The choice is clear, taxpayers or Jensen and the right has chosen Jensen. What's so right about that?

Jensen Backlash Hits Gard

So now it's State Rep. John Gard, (R-Peshtigo), Assembly Speaker and candidate for US Congress, who finds himself coping with the political blowback from Scott Jensen's political corruption convictions.

The two are long-time allies: Jensen was involved in Gard's initial, 1987 win in a special election, even campaigning in Gard's rural northeastern district from the back of a pickup truck.

Gard later followed Jensen into the Speaker's chair after Jensen was charged in the capital corruption scandal, and when Jensen stepped down as Speaker, Gard compensated him with key committee appointments, including a seat on the all-powerful and prestigious Committee on Joint Finance that Jensen still holds.

Now Gard has to decide whether to remove Jensen in the wake of the criminal convictions.

You'd think the resulting headline and decision - - "Gard Removes Convicted Felon From Top Legislative Committee" - - would be a no-brainer, but Gard is hesitating, putting himself in the center of the story.

Talk about a self-inflicted wound.

Jensen could do for Gard and the GOP what Harriet Miers and the Dubai World Ports did for Bush when the President found himself with self-generated political heat - - step aside and make things easier for the Boss or the party.

But Jensen's ill-advised decision to contest the charges and thereby revealing years of dirty GOP linen and inner-workings of an illegal campaign machine suggests his days as team player are behind him.

Jensen could use a resignation from Joint Finance, or a complete departure from the legislature, as a strategic signal of contrition to the judge prior to sentencing, but don't hold your breath.

The longer Jensen stays on Joint Finance, the more the focus remains on Gard.

Heck of a way to campaign for Congress, where ethics issues have also risen to the top.

Cat got their tongues

Ten hours since the Jensen conviction and not a peep from Sykes, McBride, Fraley, Jordhal and McIlheran.

I guess that powerful right wing nut blogsphere has taken the day off. Good for them.

McBride is always asking where the "old" media is on stories that she thinks are important (insert: advance her point of view here.)

Seems like a good time to ask- Where's the right's "new media" on this one?

Silent.

It's kind of nice isn't it.

Protecting taxpayers or fleecing taxpayers

Wispolitics reports that "Gard wasn't ready yet to answer questions about Jensen's future in the Assembly and as a member of the powerful Joint Finance Committee."

Wasn't ready?

Where's the tough on crime swagger? Where is the call for personal responsibility?

Gard should immediately remove Jensen from the Joint Finance Committee. It was beyond ridiculous that Gard appointed Jensen to the powerful committee after he was charged but the fact that he is now dragging his feet on removing Jensen tells you a lot about what kind of Congressman Gard would be in D.C.

You can bet this is going to be a big campaign issue for Gard in his attempt at Congress and if Terri McCormick had a clue she would be jumping all over this.

Jensen's conviction is further proof that the Assembly Republicans have been running the most organized and calculated fleecing of Wisconsin taxpayers in the history of the state. The fact that Gard isn't ready to pull Jensen off the committee that is in charge of the taxpayers purse strings shows that GOP just don't get it.

It is going to be very hard for Gard and the rest to go around and talk about "protecting taxpayers" with their gimmick to change the constitution when a jury has now concluded that in fact the Assembly GOP has been doing the exact opposite for years.

If a jury wouldn't buy the arguments, what makes anyone think voters won't see the same thing-- the Assembly GOP has been fleecing taxpayers for years by using our hard earned money to pay for their political campaigns.

Today it was decided that is illegal and in November people are going to decide it is wrong.

Dumbing Down Our Kids

“We should legislate each day in the knowledge that future generations will be living with the consequences of our actions.

For future generations will be the judge of whether we were men and women who had the courage to stand up for right.

Who let neither personal interest, financial gain nor political ambition divert us from the fulfillment of the sacred trust articulated in our oath of office.”

- Scott Jensen

Jensen's Self-Destruction

Maybe someday soon-to-be-former State. Rep. Scott Jensen, (R-Town of Brookfield), will tell us what he was thinking when he chose to contest charges in court to which he had already confessed.

Charges similar to those to which a bi-partisan handful of other legislators had already pleaded guilty.

Charges supported by a trove of documents and witnesses.

Shakespeare wrote about the insolence of office: Jensen has re-defined it.

Cheney popularity trails OJ, Jacko

Dick Cheney, who's just about the most unpopular man in America, comes to Cheeseland Monday to help John Gard try to get elected to Congress. Let's hope some of his magic rubs off on Gard.

The Gard campaign is asking, and raising, big bucks, so Cheney must still have some cachet with the base. Have your pic taken with the veep, $5,000. Go figure.

The country as a whole gives him an 18% approval rating.

"How low is that?" you ask. (I thought you'd never ask.)

The Washington Post puts it into some perspective:

... How bad is a rating of 18 percent? According to a quick review of polling archives, it arguably makes Cheney:

· Less popular than singer Michael Jackson , bedmate of little boys and world-class screwball. One in four Americans -- 25 percent -- told Gallup polltakers last June they were still Jackson fans after the onetime King of Pop was found not guilty of child molesting.

· Less popular than former football star O.J. Simpson was after his arrest and trial for murdering his estranged wife and her companion. Three in 10 -- 29 percent -- of all Americans had a favorable view of Simpson in an October, 1995 Gallup poll.

· Less popular with Americans than Joseph Stalin is with Russians. In 2003, fully 20 percent said Stalin, blamed for millions of deaths in the former Soviet Union during the 1930s and 1940s, was a "wise and humane" leader. Thirty-one percent also said they wouldn't object if Uncle Joe came back to rule again, according to surveys conducted by Russian pollsters.

· Much less popular than former Vice President Spiro Agnew in his final days in office. Forty-five percent approved of the job that Agnew was doing as President Richard Nixon's veep in a Gallup Poll conducted in August 1973, little more than a month before Agnew resigned and pleaded no contest to a criminal tax evasion charge arising from a bribery investigation.

· Far less popular than former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey days after he announced in August 2004 that he had engaged in an extramarital affair with a man and would resign. His job approval rating bumped from 43 to 45 percent.

But take heart, Dick. About 35 percent of those interviewed by the CBS poll didn't offer an opinion of you. Perhaps some of your supporters were shy. And other polls released later in the week pegged your popularity considerably higher.

Besides, even at 18 percent you're not the least popular public figure in America. You're slightly better liked than that fabulously blond and brainless party girl Paris Hilton. She was viewed favorably last June by 15 percent of the public, according to Gallup. -- Richard Morin

OK, one more Cheney-Jackson joke, courtesy of Jay Leno: "What's the difference between Michael Jackson and Dick Cheney? One has pasty white skin, fake body parts and he's creepy; the other's Michael Jackson."

School choice: The sky's the limit

Having gotten more Milwaukee students into the school choice program, some Republicans are ready to think big.

Scott Walker wants school choice for everyone, with no income limits It sounds like he only means that to apply to Milwaukee, but his press release isn't clear.

State Rep. Robin Vos, R-Racine, took a break from trolling for babes on the Internet long enough to call for statewide school choice, without income limits. If that won't work, Vos says he'd settle for getting vouchers for everyone in the Racine area, he says.

That's a far cry from what the school choice idea was all about.

When State Rep. Polly Williams, Mayor John Norquist, and a handful of others began talking up school choice for Milwaukee, it was focused specifically on low-income families in Milwaukee.

Why? People with money have always had school choice, because they can send their kids to school anywhere they want. The idea was to give poor people the same choices rich people had, instead of being forced to send their kids to poor schools.

Milwaukee public schools were and are the worst in the state when you use a measure like the graduation rate, where almost as many students drop out as graduate from high school. Poor people had no choice but to send their kids there, while those with money were opting out.

Milwaukee schools were in crisis. The idea was, "Why not try everything? Maybe something will work."

That's what sold me and many others on the idea.

Choice was part of the mix, as an experiment. It's still an experiment, and the results still aren't clear, although taxpayers are spending almost $100-million a year on it.

Taking off the income or geographic limits on the program would take school choice in an entirely new, uncharted direction. And it would threaten public education in this state the way the Milwaukee choice program does not.

Public schools are a cornerstone of American democracy. The theory is that a public education, available to everyone, will result in an informed citizenry that can make good decisions in choosing its leaders and running the government. Idealistic? Of course. But it's worked pretty well so far, even if 20% of the American people still think there are WMDs in Iraq right now.

Another key part of the equation is local control of schools by elected school boards. Yes, there are state and federal regulations galore, but people at the local level still run our public schools. That has worked pretty well, too.

These are just the opening moves in an effort to expand school choice. It's one thing for outstate Republicans to vote against Milwaukee Public Schools. But it may be a very different question when it is their local school boards and public school system that is threatened.

Watch and see.

Rumble on the right over gay issues

Charlie Sykes' questioning the dogma of the amendment to ban gay marriages and domestic partnerships has set off quite a discussion on the right. Sykes is getting his share of disagreement and criticism from his conservative cohort. But there are voices of reason on the right on this issue, including Ragnar Mentaire of I Am the Force, who comes to Sykes' defense with some forceful words. A sample:

Again, extending equal protection of the law to my gay neighbors will do nothing to threaten real marriage or the dark place in Glenn Grothman's head. It simply doesn't hurt any of you to leave people alone to live their lives as they wish. Don't be such a bunch of pricks. These are real people and real families that your messing with. And Charlie Sykes will never be dumb enough to fall for your hateful line of reasoning.

Deputies' blog back in action

Milwaukee Sheriff News, a blog that tells what's going on in David Clarke's department from the point of view of the people who work there, is back in business.

It had been on hiatus since late August.

FEMA strikes again

Six months after Hurricane Katrina, bodies still lie undiscovered in New Orleans. FEMA, doing its usual fine job, is making sure they remain undiscovered.

Inexcusable. Unfortunately, not incredible.

Quote, counter-quote

The death penalty is about justice. ... In my view, we are about justice in the state of Wisconsin. -- State Sen. Carol Roessler, R-Oshkosh.

Actually, the death penalty is about revenge, which is not what we are about in Wisconsin -- Xoff.

Rent-to-own lawmakers

Is the Wisconsin legislature for sale, or just for rent? State Rep. Mark Pocan says a rent-to-own bill passed in the last-minute rush is something to be ashamed of.

A good project for the goo-goos: Let's see who got how much from the industry to push this piece of tripe. The rent-to-own industry has always been free with its campaign money. It can afford to be.

GOP blocks body armor for troops

In the legislature's rush to adjournment, Republicans in both houses managed to prevent passage of a bill to have the state provide high-quality, up-to-date body armor for Wisconsin Guard and Reserve members called up to active combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the State Senate, a party-line vote declared an amendment by State Sen. Dave Hansen, D-Green Bay, out of order when he tried to attach it to Assembly Bill 382, to requires the state to display POW flags at state rest areas.

Hansen took that step after the Senate's GOP leadership abruptly cancelled a scheduled hearing for his original bill, Senate Bill 609, without any explanation.

Over in the other house, the Assembly Republican leadership decided to table a bill (SB-613)it had been pushing, to transfer $16-million from the King Veterans Home to the Dept. of Veterans Affairs, after State Rep. Tom Nelson, D-Kaukauna, the Assembly sponsor of the body armor bill, proposed it as an amendment to the transfer bill. SB-613 had passed the Senate 32-1, but the Assembly GOP decided to let it sit rather than deal with Nelson's amendment. It was tabled on a voice vote, so there is no embarrassing roll call for the Rs.

"It is unfortunate that we can find time to pass legislation for any number of special interest groups, but we can't find the will to protect the most special interest group of all -- the brave men and women who have voluntarily chosen to put their lives on the line for us. It's a sad way to end this session," said Hansen.

"We could have chosen to protect our Guard and Reserve today. Unfortunately, the majority chose to hide behind a technicality," Hansen said.

A recent Pentagon report found that 80% of all Marine casualties could have been prevented had they been outfitted with high-quality, up-to-date body armor.

It is hard to understand why Wisconsin Republicans, who wave the flag and beat the drums to support the war and the troops, turned their backs on the troops on a bill that could actually save their lives.

Earlier post.

UPDATE: If I had seen this earlier, I could have saved a lot of unnecessary writing. Carrie Lynch calls it John Gard's death tax.

Spending cuts should start with legislature

Physician, heal thyself

Note to those legislators who so desperately want to curb government spending that they think we need to pass a constitutional amendment:

If you can't figure out who's spending all of the taxpayers' money, take a look in the mirror.

A Detroit News article on the costs of running Michigan's state legislature contains some numbers that should be of interest to Wisconsin taxpayers, too.

Wisconsin, which ranks 18th in population, cracks the top 10 when states are ranked by how much it costs to run their legislatures. Wisconsin's tab: $56-million a year. The legislature, being an independent branch of government, operates on a "sum sufficient" budget and spends whatever it decides it needs. The data is from the National Conference of State Legislatures, based on the 2003 fiscal year. (Click on the chart to enlarge it.)

That puts the Badger State ahead of states like Ohio, which has twice our population, or even liberal, free-spending Massachusetts, which has about a million more people than Wisconsin.

Salaries of Wisconsin lawmakers rank ninth in the nation at $45,569 a year, not counting the $88 per diem or mileage when they go to Madison.

In Michigan, a group of citizens is pushing a longshot ballot proposal for a unicameral legislature. A legislator has introduced a resolution calling for a state constitutional amendment to cut the number of senators from 38 to 20 and the number of representatives from 110 to 60.

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, we are tinkering with reducing the size of county boards.

Yes, there's also Bride of TABOR, the proposed constitutional amendment to limit government revenue, being promoted by a posse of anti-tax, anti-government "reformers" who just keep spending more money on themselves.

It's a gimmick, pure and simple. It would squeeze some programs, but the sum-sufficient legislators would continue to fund their pet projects, repay their special interest supporters, and make sure that salaries, benefits and perks keep right on flowing. It won't stop waste and abuse in the legislative branch.

Instead of debating how many Waukesha County Board members it takes to change a lightbulb, why don't some of those crusaders look at cutting spending by the legislature itself.

It shouldn't be hard to do. Those fiscally conservative Republicans hold 79 of the 132 seats. Piece of cake, right?

The sponsor of the Michigan proposal to cut the size of the legislature said:

"The residents of Michigan keep hearing that they must sacrifice more and more to keep our economy afloat. It is time we matched their action. If we are truly serious about bringing Michigan back to health, we should all be willing to put our own jobs on the line for the sake of improving our government."

Do I hear a second?

Charlie, cue the crickets.

-- via Working for Change. (Click on cartoon to enlarge.)

Can't be too careful

San Diego woman fired for having an Air America bumpersticker. The North County Times reports “after seeing the sticker, the employer commented that the woman could be a member of al-Qaida.”

-- Think Progress.

-- Dan Wasserman, Boston Globe, via Cagle.

In Wisconsin, it could be 15 years.

Sykes undecided on gay marriage vote

UPDATE: Dennis York outs Sykes as King of the RINOs. York's kidding, but others are not happy about Sykes straying a little from the flock.

UPDATE 2: Rumble on the right.

---

Republican radio's Charlie Sykes says he is undecided on the amendment to ban gay marriages and civil unions.

One of the nagging questions he's wrestling with:

Exactly how does allowing gays to enter into legal, monogamous relationships undermine the institution of marriage? Isn’t in society’s interest to foster and recognize such stable relationships? And why would that be something that conservatives would oppose?

An excellent question. Let's hope Charlie comes down on the right correct side of this one.

(The column, you'll note, appears in Isthmus, Madison's alternative weekly. Let's hope we see it in his column in the CNI suburban papers, too.)

-- Steve Kelley, New Orleans Times-Picayune, via Cagle.

Feingold doing recon in Iowa

Sen. Russ Feingold, potential Cheesehead for President, has sent an advance scouting party of one into Iowa. It's Paul Tewes, whom Wisconsin Dems may remember from 1998, when he was the state party's executive director and ran the coordinated campaign. WashPost has more.

No time for troops as session ends

In the rush to adjourn this week, Wisconsin lawmakers are passing bills left and right to keep their commitments to the special interests whose help they want in the fall campaigns.

Was that cynical? Just truthful.

One bill the Republican leadership has decided it doesn't have time for is one that sounds like a no-brainer. Introduced by two Dems (is that the problem?), it would insure that Wisconsin National Guard or Reserve troops sent into combat are equipped with the best body armor available.

It's something that would be unnecessary if the GOP-controlled Congress, the White House or Defense Dept. would make it a priority. But they haven't.

The legislation, authored by State Sen. Dave Hansen, D-Green Bay, and State Rep. Tom Nelson, D-Kaukauna, comes after a recent Pentagon study that showed 80% of Marine casualties in Iraq could have been avoided with extra body armor.

“If the federal government won't take care of our troops, then Wisconsin should,” Nelson said. “This bill simply makes sure that our citizen soldiers receive the basic protective gear to do their job.” The National Guard falls under the jurisdiction of the state and consequently, the state has a responsibility for those soldiers.

Senate Bill 609, Hansen's bill, was scheduled for a public hearing last Monday. Over the weekend, Senate Veterans Committee Chairman Ron Brown, R-Eau Claire, pulled the bill from the hearing schedule.

Nelson then tried to attach the bill as an amendment to another Assembly bill, but the GOP leadership refused to consider it.

“I find the actions of leadership in this instance very bewildering. This bill has bi-partisan support in both houses. We can afford to do this because our troops cannot afford to be without the best available protection we can provide them. It should be an easy vote. But, for some reason people around here apparently don’t want to vote on this,” Nelson said.

The Dept. of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Champion State Sen. Dave Zien, R-Eau Claire, Rep. Mark (Victory in Iraq) Green and others you would expect to be in the front ranks on this issue are silent. Milwaukee County Exec Scott Walker likes to hold rallies for the troops, but does nothing substantive.

Is it because the Republicans don't want Nelson, a freshman who defeated an incumbent Republican last year, to get any credit? He is a prime target for the GOP this fall. Or is it because it will point up the failure of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld to take care of the troops?

Next time some right-wing legislator sounds off about supporting the troops, ask him where he was when the troops needed his support.

Feingold plans cyber town hall

Sen. Russ Feingold, waging a pretty successful cyber campaign to lay the groundwork for a possible presidential run, takes it another step on Friday, with a national online listening session at 9:30 a.m. CST.

To take part, you can sign up here.

Feingold has held listening sessions in each of Wisconsin's 72 counties every year since taking office in 1993. It must be tempting to do those online, too. If he does run for the big job in 2008, it is hard to imagine how he will also get to all 72 counties in Wisconsin while maintaining a national schedule. But I wouldn't bet against it.

Democrats united?

Democrats usually can't agree on anything, but Milwaukee County Dems have passed a resolution opposing the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages and domestic partnerships. And it was unanimous.

More free advice to Republicans

Lock up the anti-ethanol vote.

Propose a consitutional amendment to ban ethanol mandates.

Let's see if Scott Walker bites, or if Tom Reynolds beats him to it.

The Great Ethanol Debate (Huh?)

More evidence the right wingers need to get a life. Charlie Sykes:

DOES SCHULTZ HAVE A CLUE...

(A) How badly passing an ethanol mandate will split the Republican base in Southeastern Wisconsin? Clue: your base is not the ethanol lobby. (You'll realize this when you see how much cash they spread around to Doyle and the Dems this fall.)

(B) How badly this will hurt Mark Green, who will now find himself on the wrong side of an issue that will fester for months (as opposed to one that could have been shelved and largely forgotten by September)?

(C) How badly this reflects on the backbone and principles of the GOP legislature?

(D) That even though he's playing this as an insider game of massaging lobbyists and kowtowing to vulnerable senators like Kapanke and Brown the ethanol issue has become very much an outsider issue with the public watching every move?

(D) How badly this reflects on his own sorry leadership skills. If the ethanol vote passes with Democratic votes, not even TPA will save Schultz's hide.

Does Dale Schultz understand any of this? Probably not.

Split the base? Long-lasting effects? Cost Schultz his leadership post?

Biggest issue since light rail, apparently, and I had no clue. Schultz, who represents a rural district, is probably representing the people who sent him to Madison.

Wonder how it plays elsewhere in the state. If I were Mark Green (what am I saying?), I'd run a spot on the state's farm radio network, explaining how this Milwaukee guy, Scott Walker, doesn't get it, doesn't care about farmers, and thinks corn comes in a can.

I must say, it is entertaining to see the Repubs tear themselves apart over meaningless stuff.

---

UPDATE: I guess Green didn't get my memo in time. He has decided to go after Walker on mandates. Yawn. From the Green Sheet:

Scott Walker doesn't support the ethanol mandate, but he sure has supported plenty of mandates during his time in the legislature. Here's just a sample of a few:

1999 Senate Bill 206
MANDATE: Mandates that bread can only be sold by weight in Wisconsin.

2001 Assembly Bill 202
MANDATE: Prohibits drivers with instructional permits or probationary licenses from using a cell phone while driving.

2001 Assembly Bill 802
MANADATE: Mandates that nursing homes must have a certain number of registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, and certified nurse's assistants.

2001 Senate Bill 250
MANDATE: Mandates that health insurance providers must cover equipment and supplies for certain diabetes treatments.

Now, we're not saying Mark opposes any of these bills – he doesn't. The point we're making is that Walker has supported plenty of mandates throughout his career, and that makes him no less a conservative Republican than all the good conservatives who support ethanol – and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

More great news from Iraq

Things continue to go "very, very, very well."

WashPost:

BAGHDAD, March 8 -- Gunmen wearing what appeared to be the uniforms of Iraqi Interior Ministry commandos stormed a private security company in the capital Wednesday afternoon and kidnapped as many as 50 employees, an official of the ministry said. In an atmosphere of spiraling lawlessness, at least 47 people across the country were killed between Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

'If convicted, I will still serve?'

Even if he is convicted of a felony, State Rep. Scott Jensen can remain in office and collect his salary until sentencing, Madison's WKOW-TV reports. That's based on a 1976 attorney general's opinion.

Of course, Jensen has not been convicted, and even if he is, he presumably would appeal. It is not clear what happens during an appeal, but it seems logical that he would remain in office. Another option would be to resign if convicted, but he doesn't seem a likely candidate to do that.

Yet another possibility, of course, is that he will be acquitted. Sometimes what goes on in the jury room has little in common with what you've read in the newspapers. But if you bet on acquittal, get some odds.

Bush's numbers almost as bad as Nixon's

New Gallup Poll:

When Americans were asked a follow-up of whether they strongly approve or disapprove of Bush, more than twice as many Americans say they strongly disapprove (44%) as say they strongly approve (20%) of Bush. The strong disapproval rating is the highest Gallup has measured for Bush by a percentage point, and is the highest for any president since Richard Nixon during the Watergate era.

Nixon is the only other president to register strong disapproval ratings above 40% in Gallup Polls. Nixon had a 48% strong disapproval rating in February 1974, and a 46% rating days before he resigned from office in August 1974. Gallup first asked about strength of approval during the Lyndon Johnson administration, and has asked it periodically for every president since.

War supporter wants to hear from you

The Republican Party has notified its activists that:

Bill Richardson, of http://www.VOTENOToCutandRun.com will be on the Joy Cardin show on Wisconsin Public Radio tomorrow morning, March 9th from 7:00am to 8:00am.

Bill is a retired UW professor and a retired member of the Wisconsin National Guard. He is working to defeat the Democrat’s “Cut and Run” resolution on the April ballot.

Since Bill is going directly into enemy territory in Madison, please give the show a call and express your support.

The call in number is 1-800-642-1234. If you live in the Madison area, the number is 263-1890.

If you don't happen to think that planning for an orderly, staged withdrawal of US troops is a "cut and run" strategy, feel free to call our friend Bill and tell him that, too.

It's Ugly Week in the Capitol

Step right up, get your bill passed while it's hot. State Rep. Mark Pocan says the final days of the session are producing some pretty smelly sausage.

Profiles in courage

South Dakota's governor, after signing a bill banning abortion,backs away from it.

Hat tip: ThinkProgress.

Judge's speech not exactly a blockbuster

Federal Judge Diane Sykes makes what is essentially a political speech at Marquette, chastising the Wisconsin Supreme Court, of which she is a former member, for what she calls its activism. It's no doubt designed to get her some attention from the right in case a better judicial job opens up (or to make them wish she hadn't been passed over for US Supreme Court).

Ex-hubby Charlie hypes it in advance, promises a bombshell that will rock the Wisconsin judiciary to its foundations. Other right-wing bloggers (you can guess who they are) join in.

So far, nothing in the mainstream news media.

Brace yourself for the campaign to get the state's newspapers to write about it. It might actually be worth a short story. But it is not the blockbuster either Sykes thinks it is. It's all pretty predictable stuff from an ambitious conservative judge who knows how to use the alternative media.

The court's not conservative since she left. Big surprise. Big deal.

Maybe she should just write an op ed column.

UPDATE: She gets her op ed.

Am I missing something?

Did the newspaper reports leave it out, or did the prosecutor fail to ask Scott Jensen about Sherry Schultz?

Jensen says he inherited a system where people did political work at the Capitol, and/or he didn't know anybody was doing it on state time.

Unless I'm mistaken, didn't Jensen hire Schultz, put her on Steve Foti's payroll and have her work full-time to raise money for Republicans?

Did anyone ask him that, or how he could possibly claim he didn't know what she was doing?

If so, what did he say?

Just one nagging question about poll

New Wisconsin poll.

Everybody loves Tommy. (Run, Tommy, Run.) Nobody likes W. (Run away from Bush.) Close race for gov. (Run, Tommy, Run?)

It's done by a Republican firm. Question: Who's paying for these? Strategic Vision isn't doing it out of curiosity. Knowing who's paying the bill would help put it in some perspective. And, yes, the same is true of others that show up from time to time.

Surprise! Close vote on Patriot Act

Sen. Russ Feingold probably isn't feeling quite as lonely today, in his role as a voice in the wilderness warning of the dangers of the Patriot Act. And Rep. F. Jim Sensenbrenner is perhaps not crowing quite as loudly, after almost losing the vote in his house.

The Chicago Tribune reports:

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The House renewed the USA Patriot Act in a cliffhanger vote Tuesday night, extending a centerpiece of the war on terrorism at President Bush's urging after months of political combat over the balance between privacy rights and the pursuit of potential terrorists.

Bush, forced by filibuster to accept new curbs on law enforcement investigations, is expected to sign the legislation before 16 provisions of the 2001 law expire Friday.

The vote was 280-138, just two more than needed under special rules that required a two-thirds majority. The close vote caught senior Republican aides in both chambers by surprise.

Three Wisconsin Democrats -- Tammy Baldwin, Gwen Moore, and Dave Obey -- were among the "no" votes as Democrats found some backbone.

Always glad to help

Too good not to share. I got this e-mail today.

Dear Fellow Blogger,

My name is . . . and I am with the Wisconsin Conservative Digest as well as a college student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

I was just writing to see if there was any way that you could make a post regarding the Future Wisconsin Conference that will be held this Saturday (March 11) at Bluemound Gardens in Wauwatosa?

It looks like this is going to be much larger than last year and we would like to see that growth continue. As your blog content and traffic show, your blog could be a great resource in helping us get even more people to this event.

I did my share yesterday. It's titled Gathering of the nuts this weekend.

Wis. could have harsh anti-abortion law if Roe v. Wade is overturned

In case you were wondering why we pay so much attention to Supreme Court nominees, South Dakota has answered the question.

Its virtual ban on abortions is designed to end up before the U. S. Supreme Court as a mechanism to give the court a chance to overturn Roe v. Wade.

If that happens sometime down the road, Wisconsin could have one of the country's harshest anti-abortion laws on the books -- making abortion a crime and putting doctors who perform abortions in prison -- without the legislature even taking any action.

The law is already on the books. It has been unconstitutional and unenforceable since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

But the so-called "pro-life" forces who pull the strings in the legislature have successfully resisted any attempts to repeal the law and take it off the books. To win the endorsement of Wisconsin Right-to-Life, a candidate must agree to oppose repeal of the 157-year-old ban.

Today, State Rep. Terese Berceau, D-Madison, and other abortion rights lawmakers will unveil legislation to repeal that law. It's a gesture, but doomed to failure with the current makeup of the legislature. Republicans will make sure it doesn't even get a vote, because they don't want to have to defend their votes on the law, which is perhaps the most extreme in the nation.

It is stricter than the new South Dakota law. Wisconsin's law contains greater penalties for doctors who perform abortions -- up to 15 years in prison and a $50,000 fine . It also provides prison sentences for women who obtain abortions, even if they are rape victims or need an abortion to preserve their health, although those penalties cannot be enforced because of a subsequent law.

It's complicated, but the bottom line is that if Roe v. Wade is overturned, the draconian Wisconsin law will go back into effect. No need for the legislature to vote or the governor to sign a bill. It will be the law.

Here is the explanation from the Wisconsin Right to Life candidate questionnaire for candidates for state office.

The question and explanation:

1. Section 940.04 of the Wisconsin statutes prohibits abortion unless it is necessary to save the life of the mother. Will you vote against legislation to repeal s. 940.04?

Will you vote against legislation which would add any other exception to s 940.04?

"Section 904.04 is currently unenforceable because the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision struck down the criminal abortion statutes across the nation. Consequently, abortion is legal in Wisconsin for any reason throughout pregnancy as many times as a woman wants one. If the U.S. Supreme Court reverses Roe v. Wade, or severely limits its impact, there is judicial precedence which would reestablish the enforceability of s. 940.04, which means that it is highly likely that a court would rule that abortion would once again be illegal in Wisconsin. Thus, it is important to keep s. 940.04 on the books to protect unborn children.

"Abortion advocates have attempted to repeal s. 940.04 but have been unsuccessful. If s. 940.04 is repealed, then abortion would continue to be legal in Wisconsin even if Roe v. Wade is reversed, unless or until a new ban on abortion would be enacted by the legislature.

"Although 2. 940.04 contains criminal penalties for women who obtain abortions, the enactment of s. 940.13 in 1985 nullifies the impact of those penalties, meaning that women CANNOT be penalized or jailed for obtaining an abortion or otherwise violating s. 940.04.

"Wisconsin Right to Life opposes the repeal of s. 940.04 and opposes the addition of any other exception to s. 940.04."

In order to receive the endorsement of Wisconsin Right to Life, a candidate must answer "yes' to the question above and agree to oppose repeal of s. 940.04.

All of this is certain to make abortion rights a key issue in this fall's legislative races.

For pro-choice forces, it is an opportunity to highlight the extreme positions of some pro-life candidates.

Pro-Life Wisconsin, the more extreme group, demands a commitment to no exceptions for rape, incest, or protecting the life or health of a woman. A 14-year old who is raped by a relative and becomes pregnant would be forced to have the child, if Pro Life Wisconsin prevailed.

Any candidate endorsed by that group is fair game to be exposed as an extremist. Those views are far out of the Wisconsin mainstream, but pro-choice candidates are often afraid or hesitant to raise the issue. That must not be the case this fall. There is far too much at stake to remain silent. The people of Wisconsin do not support those extreme measures.

A roundup at Governing magazine lists Wisconsin among the states likely to ban abortion if Roe is overturned. The analysis says 23 states would be likely to ban most abortions, 20 states would keep abortion legal (at least in the first trimester) and 7 states would be battlegrounds.

Illinois and Iowa are listed as states where abortions probably would still be legal, so Wisconsin women wouldn't have to travel too far for a legal abortion. Is that what we want?

UPDATE: Recalling when abortion was a crime.

Just wondering

What do Tom DeLay and Scott Jensen have in common?

Here's one thing: Both won elections after being indicted.

Can you think of any others?

The view from never-never land

The Cap Times' John Nichols lives in another dimension, his own little world, when it comes to politics.

In his latest column, he argues that Tom Barrett or Kathleen Falk could have been elected governnor in 2002 if they had only been willing to talk about raising taxes. In reality, anyone who did that in the 2002 climate would have been commiting political suicide. But not in Nichols World, of course. And he would rather be a pure progressive, whatever that is, than win an election.

Nichols' main premise is that Dems don't really like Doyle, and there is some truth to that. But Democrats like Doyle a lot more than Nichols and the Cap Times do. What they've done -- encouraging a primary challenge to Doyle by Spencer Black or others, bad-mouthing Doyle at every opportunity -- is destructive.

This is destructive, too, speculating about what would happen if Doyle were indicted (what are the odds, a million to one?):

... Democratic insiders have been quietly discussing the names of last-minute replacement candidates, with U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, as always, topping the list, but with everyone from U.S. Rep. Ron Kind to Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, Lt. Gov. Lawton, current Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley and former Justice William Bablitch gaining mention.

That would be way inside, as in Ed Garvey, Barbara Lawton, and John Nichols doing some blue-skying. There is no such serious discussion going on anywhere, even quietly, among any "Democratic insiders." The idea -- like most of the names Nichols floats -- are ridiculous on their face.

Nichols should get out of his corner of the Capitol Square coffee shop and talk to some real voters. They may not love Jim Doyle, but they understand -- as Nichols surely does if he is honest -- that re-electing Doyle and keeping his veto power is their only hope in November.

Wis school choice debate goes national

First there was John Tierney's NY Times column about how great things are in Voucherville, USA. (Milwaukee to you.)

Then this response by By Greg Anrig, Jr. at TPM Cafe, which dissects Tierney's version, making it two tales of the same city.

Hat tip: Kevin Drum, Political Animal.

New war on the way?

Cheney Says Iran Will Face Consequences

Vice president threatens Iran with "meaningful consequences" if it fails to cooperate with international efforts to curb its nuclear program.

When I see that on the Washington Post website, the first thing I wonder is whether more "shock and awe" will be unleashed soon. Cheney would like nothing better, and we could all unite behind our commander-in-chief.

Confessing Catholic inconsistency

What does the Catholic church think about "letting the people decide?" Well, sometimes yes, sometimes no. It all depends upon whose lives are at stake. Seth Zlotocha has details.

Afterthought: Cheap shot, perhaps, but priests can't marry anyway.

Where's Tommy?

Not testifying at the felony trial of his protege, Scooter Jensen.

Not attending a meeting of the Red Cross board.

No, Tommy Thompson -- the guy who says he might want to run for office again -- is hosting a DC fundraiser for Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Tex. on the night of DeLay's primary election.

Just what we need ...

... an advisory referendum on the death penalty.

If it's on the September primary ballot, it will drive the Republican candidates for governor and attorney general even farther toward the edge of the Earth (which they believe to be flat.)

Can't wait for the Biggest Demagogue contest. I predict Paul Bucher wins, although Mark Green got a head-start.

There's a reason Wisconsin outlawed the death penalty in 1853. Our state is better than that.

Republicans have tried to use the issue before, most recently in the 1994 AG's race, when Jeff Wagner (who has gone on to fame and fortune as a Republican radio host) callously put the grieving father of a young murder victim in his television commercial to attack Jim Doyle, who was then the AG. Doyle has been a strong and consistent opponent of the death penalty, and has won four statewide elections.

This is lunacy.

And the winner is...

for Most Conservative Congressman, Mark Green. Yes, even farther right than F. Jim. Cory Liebmann at Eye on Wisconsin has details.

Gathering of the nuts this weekend

"Boy if you gather a few nuts in one place you sure can attract a lot of squirrels."

That, according to Bob Dohnal, publisher of the Wisconsin Conservative Digest, is the theory behind the Future Wisconsin Conference to be held this weekend. He reached that conclusion after reading coverage of Fighting Bobfest, he says, so that would make Ed Garvey his muse.

There will be wingnuts galore, both on the program and in the audience, starting with Dohnal himself, who made some news himself this week with his comments in defense of State Sen. Tom Reynolds, R-Pluto, against a possible primary challenge. Even Charlie Sykes thinks Reynolds is a nut case who's beyond the pale. Spivak and Bice say Dohnal is, too, after he called State GOP Chair Rick Graber corrupt.

The Spice Boys:

Already far from the Republican mainstream, Dohnal all but guaranteed with his rant that he and his buddy the senator [Reynolds] will remain on the party's fringes.

But when Dohnal opens the second Future Wisconsin conference on Saturday,Republican candidates will be there to pay homage and court the support of the wingnuts who, sad to say, are the GOP base.

They'll start with a "Bias in the Media" panel, then move on to "How to Fight Back" against those powerful left-wing groups that have been trained by Saul Alinsky to "go for the juggler." (Most groups I've worked with have gone for the clowns and let the juggler do his thing.) I'm not making this stuff up. Go right to the source if you doubt.

Gubernatorial candidates Mark Green and Scott Walker will be there, polishing their appeals to the fringes.

So will "the two candidates for attorney general," who probably aren't Kathleen Falk and Peg Lautenschlager, on a panel on crime and punishment. And who will join Paul Bucher and J.R. Van Hollen in front of this auspicious group? None other than Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, who still says he's running for reelection this fall as Democratat.

And there's a panel on, "Can We Afford to Live In Wisconsin"? chaired by WTMJ Republican radio host Jeff Wagner and include "all of the Candidates for statewide office." Panelists will discuss "public employee benefit packages, Medicaid, property taxes, education costs, fees, and other contributors to Wisconsin high tax burden. There will be a focus on the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights," we're told.

Wagner and the panelists, of course, all can comfortably afford to live in Wisconsin or anywhere else they choose. This is not the Poor People's Convention.

So, Dohnal has gathered the nuts. Watch the squirrels -- the candidates and the news media -- follow.

TPA v. the MPA

Anti-tax rhetoric is easy to spout, but when it comes to standing up for taxpayers instead of special interests, that's a horse of a different feather, as one legislator once said.

There's no better example than Speaker John Gard, the Republican who wants a Taxpayer Protection Amendment, but also wants to make taxpayers keep shelling out to pay for sweet deals Gard and his fellow Republicans have made with the Milwaukee Police Assn.

Jim Rowen has more on the clash between the TPA and the MPA.

Defining issue in GOP gov race?

Campaigns are about drawing distinctions between candidates, and apparently the defining issue has surfaced in the GOP gov primary between Scott Walker and Mark Green.

If you get on the wrong side of the ethanol issue, buddy, you're dead meat.

UPDATE: Now Walker has a radio spot (presumably not running on the farm network.) Do you think he has polling that shows this will win him the nomination? I don't.

Quote, unquote

"The problem is that [State Sen. Tom] Reynolds is an extremist and it does no good to try to pretend that he's not a wingnut, simply because he often votes right."

-- Charlie Sykes.

The Jensen report

State Rep. Scott Jensen's weekly report on what's happening in the Capitol was produced by his staff this week. They said they would gladly give the responsibilty back to him "when Scott returns in a few weeks."

No mention of where he's been -- on trial on three felony charges of misconduct in office.

Make that "If he returns."

A felony conviction would force him to leave office.

More good news: No Iraq civil war!

This just in! Breaking News! Jessica McBride reports:

No civil war: How much coverage will these comments get?

LA Times:

During his briefing with reporters, Casey also addressed conditions in Iraq, saying commanders thought that the violence brought on by last month's bombing of a Shiite mosque in Samarra had largely subsided and that Iraq had moved away from the brink of large-scale civil war. "Has there been violence and terrorism here in Iraq in the wake of the Samarra bombings? Clearly. Is the violence out of control? Clearly not. Now it appears that the crisis has passed," Casey said.

You can take that to the bank.

Quote, unquote

“I thought we were having global warming.”

-- Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., speaking in opposition to low-income heating assistance bill. Bob Geiger reports.

Tommy still full of himself

It's like the old high school chant:

"Everywhere I go ....
People want to know ...
If I'm running ...
So I tell them...

I'm Tommy Thompson
Mighty, mighty Thompson
Tommy! Tommy!
Thompson! Thompson!
You'd vote for me.

Tommy the T, a legend in his own mind. What would be more fun? President? Governor? Senator? Apparently, he thinks any would be his for the asking. People apparently are begging him to run, if you believe what he tells Katherine Skiba in the Journal Sentinel. (I don't.)

“I always regretted that I never ran [for president],” Tommy said. I always regretted it, too. It would have provided him with a good taste of reality and maybe even a dose of humility. Lest we forget, the reason he didn't run is that people laughed at his early exploratory feelers, and it was clear he did not have any chance of being taken seriously -- except in Wisconsin, where the media still treat him like royalty. (Skiba doesn't even talk to anyone else, just lets Tommy talk, writes it all down and puts it in the paper. That's not journalism; it's stenography.)

Can you imagine anyone saying these words? "Please come back and run for governor. We need you back to right the ship of state.” Skiba can. I can't.

One conservative blogger says Don't run.. And another is less than enthralled as well.

-- Stuart Carlson, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

James Dobson more tolerant than Wisconsin?

Mercurial Mercure censors 'uncensored' blog

John Mercure, a reporter for WTMJ-TV, started a blog recently that got some immediate attention, mostly because one of his early posts, about a sexual assault case, was so over the top.

Mercure's blog is called "Mercure Uncut" and says it is "John Mercure's uncensored blog on Big Investigations and life inside the TMJ4 newsroom."

His post on the sexual assault case looked like it could have been written by a homicidal maniac -- capital letters, huge type in some places, dozens of exclamation points. Everything but words cut out of the newspaper and pasted into a message, like a ransom note.

That all fit well with the content, which ranted and raved about the things that should be done to this sex offender, including castration. And Mercure was just getting warmed up.

[I wrote this on Sunday, wishing I had saved a copy of Mercure's rant. Serendipity: Journal Sentinel radio-TV columnist Tim Cuprisin wrote about it this morning, and said Mercure wrote: "This sick loser should be castrated . . . or strung up." His post, with 28 exclamation points, features big, bold capital letters proclaiming that "THERE IS A COZY PLACE IN A DARK CORNER OF HELL" for the offender.]

Charlie Sykes took note back when Mercure put up the original post:

TUESDAY, Feb. 28, 2006, 3:41 p.m.
NO HOLDING BACK

Usually, reporters are reluctant to express an opinion, much less a strong opinion. So it's interesting that John Mercure, a reporter on TMJ4, has a blog. I ran into him at the vending machines the other day and asked him whether he'd be blogging every day and whether he'd be holding back on his points of view. Well, we have our answer.

Today, he blogs about the Brian Homz sexual assault case. Let's just say, that Mercure doesn't make a secret of how he feels about the case.

Mercure uncaged is going to be awfully entertaining...

**UPDATE

He writes:
Charlie-
Thanks for reading.
I'm tired of holding back.
Life is too short to hold back.
-John

I have a new hero. (Sykes says)

Spivak and Bice took note, too, suggesting: "Maybe, in this one case, a little censorship wouldn't be such a bad idea."

Well, maybe Mercure has decided that life isn't too short to hold back after all. When you visit Mercure's blog now, you'll find none of that crazed rant I described. It has been sanitized. No calls for castration. No huge type in different colors.

Instead, you'll find the post below, which appears to have been written by a sane person. It's not mild, except by comparison to what he actually wrote the first time, which was about 50 times worse. Mercure doesn't even acknowledge that this is not what he wrote to begin with. He pretends this was his original post, and then gives people's responses -- including Sykes's -- which were to his first inflammatory screed.

Here's the new, censored, hold-back version of John Mercure:

I'm going to tell you the story of Brian Homz

The 38 year old from Germantown was rebuffed by his girlfriend when he tried to have sex with her.
Homz came up with a way to get even.
He raped the girlfriend's five year old daughter as she slept.
Then sat by as the little girl's grandfather was initially charged with the assault.
Thankfully, DNA evidence exonerated the grandfather and implicated Homz
He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

You can read the Journal Sentinel article by Dan Benson

Some have said that the really disturbing part is that Homz committed this crime out of an animalistic need to exact some sick revenge against his adult girlfriend.
And now an innocent child is paying the price.

This is what Circuit Judge Patrick Faragher had to say about Homz:

"The defendant (Homz) chose to hurt the child's mother by hurting the child. I view this as an act of cold anger and revenge. (Then he spoke to Homz) "I believe you have a dark side and perpetrated a horrible crime. To rape a child to hurt the mother and let the grandfather be prosecuted is a horribly destructive criminal act."

And guess what Wisconsites (sic)... under current Wisconsin law this convicted felon will eventually get out of prison and be able to live wherever he wants. Even though he will have to register as a child sex offender, he will be able to live near schools, daycares, or parks. That's right, he'll be able to live wherever he wants.
That's outrageous!

But wait... there's one more facet to this story.
Apparently many of Homz' friends and family don't think what he did was that big a deal.
Judge Faragher says the volume of letters he received asking for leniency for Brian Homz dwarfs any he has ever seen.

Are you kidding me?!

Wonder what Sykes thinks of his new hero, now that it turns out that "Mercure uncaged" is actually on a short leash, and that "Mercure Uncut" has been cut down to size?

F. Jim: Feingold doesn't want US secure

Bob Geiger:

Sensenbrenner Smears Feingold on U.S. Security

How shocking would this be if it weren’t so damn predictable?

Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner celebrated the GOP’s victory on renewing the flawed USA Patriot Act last week by saying that Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI), who has been the chief Democratic opponent of the law’s current incarnation, doesn’t want the United States to be secure.

"The Patriot Act has made America safer," said Sensenbrenner, also of Wisconsin, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee. "And Russ Feingold doesn't want that."

While millions of Americans are against the attempt by Sensenbrenner – one of the Patriot Act’s chief architects – to take the U.S. back to a civil-liberties Stone Age, the Republican party once again continues its disgusting tradition of smearing the patriotism or loyalty of anyone who opposes their sick agenda for our country.

One wonders if Sensenbrenner’s next action will be to Photoshop Feingold having tea and couscous with Osama bin Laden.

What else does Sensenbrenner say about the gutsy Democrat?

"Russ Feingold is playing politics with the security of the American people," he said.

Now, coming from a Republican, that’s funny.

Good news from Iraq

You'll be happy to hear that things are going "very, very, very well."

'Sheriff Clarke on Line 911'

Sheriff David Clarke -- that's Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke to you -- continues to treat his subordinates as though they are subhumans. Clarke ran for office promising to "change the culture" of the department by empowering front-line deputies. Instead, he has run the operation like a military dictator, punishing and silencing anyone who has dared to question anything he says or does.

The latest victim, Spivak and Bice report, is a 9-1-1 dispatcher who didn't answer the phone to Clarke's satisfaction.

He repeatedly asks her to answer the question, "What is it gonna take" to get people to answer the phone in the professional manner he expects. Not surprisingly, she doesn't have an answer, so he keeps asking. (She might have said, "Perhaps if you start treating people more like human beings ...")

Small wonder the deputies' union already has endorsed Clarke's opponent in the Democratic primary, Vince Bobot.

Amazingly, one conservative blogger plays the race card in Clarke's defense. As in, "How dare two white guys criticize a black man?" Give me a break.

Left side, right side, all around the state

What do the Waukesha County Board and the Dane County Board have in common?

Damned little, you'd think.

But there IS this one thing.

--Tom Toles, Washington Post.

Airport seizure ready for takeoff

A bill to take Mitchell International Airport away from Milwaukee County and give control to an unelected board will be introduced on Monday, have a hearing on Tuesday, and maybe even get acted upon before the legislature goes home.

State Rep. Jeff Stone, a suburban Republican, and State Sen. Jeff Plale, a southside/suburban Democrat, are sponsors.

Gretchen Schuldt at Story Hill website has details.

Wonder how those conservatives, like State Sen. Mary Lazich, who want to get rid of all unelected taxing bodies, will feel about it. Or the right-wingers who will fight to the death to see that no one's personal property is seized by the government. This airport belongs to the taxpayers, ain'a? There is no provision in the bill for any compensation to Milwaukee County.

Jensen v. Jensen

This little zinger by the prosecution in the Scott Jensen trial certainly poses a dilemma for Scooter, whose defense begins on Monday.

Jensen has argued in the past that doing political campaign work was just part of the job of being a state legislator, an inseparable part of his duties. Every legislator in a leadership role did the same thing as he did, Jensen has argued, because it goes with the territory.

But after two weeks of witnesses testifying that Jensen knew what was going on and directed staff to do blatant political work at taxpayer expense, in state-owned facilities, with state equipment, on state time, prosecutors closed with this:

Jensen trial: Jensen denied work on campaigns
State investigator testifies at trial

By Mike Miller and David Callender

In a meeting with prosecutors and state investigators, former Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen denied any knowledge that fundraising or campaign activities were taking place in legislative offices, a former Justice Department investigator testified Friday.

The testimony by David Collins, formerly the chief white-collar crime investigator for the state Division of Criminal Investigation and now head of the Wisconsin State Patrol, came as prosecutors wrapped up their case against Jensen and former legislative aide Sherry Schultz.

Collins said he and Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard met with Jensen and his lawyers in September 2001, about four months after newspaper articles first appeared alleging that legislative employees were campaigning on state time from their state offices.

In statements that were repeatedly contradicted by prosecution witnesses in his trial, which ended its second week Friday, Jensen repeatedly told investigators that "to his knowledge" no employees - either in his office or in the Assembly Republican Caucus - were doing campaign work except on their own time and using their own personal computers and phones, Collins said.

Jensen told investigators he "made it clear to his staff that they should not, cannot and did not use state resources or state time for campaigning," Collins said.

If Jensen didn't think he was doing anything wrong, why the lies and coverup? That behavior totally contradicts his argument. And the disclosure that Jensen lied to the investigator comes after several witnesses have testified that Jensen is an honest man.

Former State Rep. Steven Foti: "I would consider Scott to be a very honest person."

Jensen staffer Brian Dake: "I believe he's a truthful, honest man."

Former caucus director Ray Carey described Jensen as "a very truthful, honest person."

I believe, and Collins' testimony clearly shows, that Jensen is a big liar.

This week should be interesting.

Scott Jensen's last campaign

Brian Christianson, a Republican consultant who has worked with Scott Jensen, shows him no mercy in commenting on Jensen's decision to go to trial. Jensen, he says, finally got to run his own campaign, and it does not seem to be going too well:

It’s over. The die has been cast. The stain has set.

The Trial of Scott Jensen has torpedoed any strategy Republicans might have trotted-out this election year exploiting ethics reform. Those 30 second TV ads and 60 second radio ads slamming Dem. Gov. Jim Doyle and legislative Democrats are now toothless. Every day has been another train wreck of testimony that should have never reached the front pages.

Funny, no right-wing bloggers have mentioned it or linked to it, but you can read it here.

He was framed

Message framing guru George Lakoff, who had Dems gaga over his book, "Don't Think of an Elephant," is in Milwaukee Saturday, courtesy of the Milwaukee Public Library:

George P. Lakoff, author of “Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate,” will visit Central Library’s Centennial Hall, 733 N. Eighth St. on Saturday, March 4 at 2 p.m.

Lakoff is a professor of cognitive linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1972. Known for his ideas about the importance of metaphor to human thinking, political behavior and society, he is particularly famous for his concept of the “embodied mind” which he has written about in relation to mathematics. In recent years he has applied his work to the realm of politics, and founded a progressive think tank, the Rockridge Institute.

Admission is $15, $10 for Friends of the Library members.

No foolish consistency here

An irate reader writes (and having writ, moves on):

"Height of hypocrisy" is a term used loosely, but the fact that the Repubs rammed through an 18 million dollar property tax increase to city of Milwaukee residents while touting TABOR has to actually be the height of hypocrisy. If TABOR was in place, they could not have cut the deal they did on school choice.

The same bloggers who bottom line school choice as a Republican qualification, bottom line TABOR. Against either= RINO For both=Hypocrite (at least with the deal just cut)

I just don't get it how they can compromise their principles, and then act so principled.

..Oh, wait: School choice gives tens of thousands of dollars to Republican candidates? Now I get it.

New frontiers in choice

It was bound to happen, and we are lucky to live in a state that isn't afraid to break new ground.

New legislation makes Wisconsin the first Government Choice state in the nation. Details here.

Bias in the eye of the beholder

Charlie Sykes asks:

THIS ISN'T BIAS?

Jessica McBride compares how the JS covered the public hearing on the Taxpayer Protection Amendment with the coverage in the Waukesha Freeman.

The JS headline was: "Educators resist revenue curbs,"

The first 12 paragraphs of the story are anti-TPA government types. The headline reads: Educators resist revenue curbs. It could have read: Taxpayers urge revenue curbs. But it wasn't slanted that way. Where are "the people" in this story? The pro-TPA folks get the 8 paragraphs at the bottom of the 20 paragraph story.

In contrast, the Freeman headlined it's story: "Taxpayers fight for their rights; forum for proposed amendment draws strong emotions."

And citizen Bob Geason, who's at the end of the JS story, gets paragraphs 2, 3, and 4 in the Freeman.

Considering that opponents of the measure outnumbered supporters by something like 7 to 1, making it hard to find some fighting taxpayers to quote, it appears the coverage was biased -- but it was the Freeman's coverage, no doubt tailored to its Waukesha County readership.

Don't do it to us, do it to them

The state Republican Party's online "Grassroots Gazette" tells of the party's plans to register their voters in municipalities with populations of less than 5,000. Small town and rural voters have not had to register in the past, but they do starting this year.

The Rs say they will be signing up people at Lincoln Day dinners, county party caucuses, the state convention and county fairs.

Then comes my favorite line:

"We don't want our voters standing in long lines on Election Day and then getting turned away because they don't have the proper proof of residency to vote."

That's what they want Democratic voters to do, which is why they keep trying to make it harder to register.

Quote, unquote

{Speaker John] Gard on Wednesday slammed Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett for supporting the bill and "picking on cops." Gard added, "Some people want to be tougher on cops than the criminals." Mr. Speaker, what about criminals who are cops?

-- Journal Sentinel editorial on bill to end the requirement that Milwaukee pay salaries and benefits to fired police officers while they appeal their terminations.

Blowing Up Bridges...

...just for special interests. This goes way beyond bending over backwards for money at the Capitol, a favorite pastime of many legislators.

A bill that could force the replacement of hundreds of highway bridges has been rejected by two legislative committees, but it is being bullied through the state legislature by Senate Republican leaders set on rewarding the timber industry at the expense of taxpayers.

The bill, AB 678, allows logging and other forest industry-related trucks to carry heavier loads on state and county roads and could cost taxpayers $2.14 billion in infrastructure cost, according to a DOT study released earlier this year.

The DOT report coupled with strong opposition from state troopers, towns, counties and cities, turned the Senate Transportation and Natural Resources committee against the bill last month.

That upset Senate Republican leader Dale Schultz, who promised the logging industry he would get the bill passed for them. So, Schultz moved the bill to the Judiciary, Correction and Privacy Committee chaired by his friend Senate President Pro Tempore David Zien.

Because Zien is a cosponsor on the bill and because Republicans dominate the committee, as they do all committees in the legislature, Schultz believed it would pass with no problem. He was surprised when the majority on this committee agreed it was bad for taxpayers and indicated they too would oppose it.

So Schultz went shopping and found the Senate Job Creation, Economic Development and Consumer Affairs Committee -- where it passed 4-0 on Wednesday.

Who wins? Big payers in the timber and paper industries who get to move their product in heavier trucks.

Who loses? Taxpayers, who will be forced to subsidize operations of trucks that tear up their bridges while also increasing dangers on the highways.

--Signe Wilkinson, Philadelphia Daily News, via Cagle.

Closer to home, Tim Schilke takes the first step, too.

Tough talk, then surrender

State Sen. Tom Reynolds' brain trust -- I use the term loosely -- sure did talk the talk when State Rep. Leah Vukmir threatened to run against Reynolds in a Republican primary. "Bring it on, we'll eat her alive, blah blah blah."

And then, as Cory Liebmann points out, Reynolds caved.

Green's record on vets doesn't rate award

Well, isn't this swell?

Rep. Mark Green will hand over a $450,000 check to the Wisconsin Veterans Home at King today, and in return will get an “outstanding leadership” award from Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs.

Green's press release didn't say, but it's probably not a personal contribution from Green. It's not even Green getting rid of his tainted Tom DeLay money. Most likely, it's taxpayers' money from the federal budget, although Green may have helped earmark it as his piece of pork. And it's probably not even a real check.

The event is as phony as the award he's going to get from the Dept. of Veterans Affairs, which is still run by a Republican-appointed board and a Republican secretary, despite the fact that Jim Doyle has been governor for three years.

Green likes to talk about veterans and lead the cheers for the war in Iraq (he started the Victory in Iraq caucus in Congress, you'll recall.) But he was so busy getting a law degree that he only managed to serve five days -- that's right, five days! -- in the armed forces himself, and his record in Congress on veterans issues has been far from stellar.

Some examples, from previous posts:

Green voted for vets' health care after he voted against it.

With friends like Mark Green, our veterans don't need enemies.

Green's a classic example of a guy who says one thing to veterans in Wisconsin and does something entirely different in Washington.

But you can bet the award he gets today will show up on campaign materials in his run for governor. That, of course, is what today's new conference is all about.

Ban on Republican adoptions?

Should Republicans be able to adopt children? One Ohio legislator says no, and John Nichols of the Capital Times explains why. (The idea is to make people think.)

Next question: Should they be allowed to marry?

Katrina victims still need our help

Mardi Gras was back this week, but New Orleans is not back -- not by a long shot. This scene is one of a series of photographs by Chris Jordan, portraits of loss in Katrina's wake.

People still need help. There are many ways to donate. Charity Navigator can help you find a legitimate one.

One that I can vouch for personally, which gets money right to New Orleans musicians with no red tape, is: NOLA Relief, c/o Marcia Ball Band,Box 2629, Austin TX 78768. (If you want your gift to be tax deductible, write your check to the Austin Community Foundation and send it to the same address.)

Marcia Ball, a Vinton, Louisiana native, has been able -- through the generosity of many people -- to help more than 50 musicians who have lost everything and are still unable to return to the city. Some are names you would recognize, and there are others whose music you've heard but whose names are not well known. The need is ongoing and will be for some time.

(Marcia will be at the Barrymore Theater in Madison later this month, by the way.)

Fight! Fight! Republicans mix it up

Scott Walker and Mark Green mix it up:

Walker runs a radio spot and says:

Mark Green is making the same mistake that Jim Doyle made in his first budget by shifting school costs to property taxpayers...

We know what happens when the state backs away from its commitment: property taxes go up ...

Walker cited two different forums where Congressman Green said that he was willing to back away from a key part of the property tax relief package passed a decade ago. Both Green and Walker voted for the package in 1995 which successfully cut property taxes for Wisconsin's working families. Walker also took exception with Green using a recent forum to distort the truth in an effort to hide the fact that his plan will raise taxes.

To be clear, I'm the only candidate for Governor committed to keeping my promise and freezing your property taxes.

Green says Walker is lying:

It does not speak well of Scott Walker and his campaign when he begins his advertising campaign by telling a lie. Not only have I repeatedly said I support a property tax freeze and the Taxpayer Protection Amendment, but I am also the only candidate for governor who has promised not to run for a second term if I don't lower the tax burden on Wisconsin families... Scott Walker should know that Wisconsin families expect their elected officials to tell the truth -- his first ad simply doesn't do that.

Walker writes to Green, challenges him to back up his claims.

UPDATE: Green issues a special internet newsletter, the Green Sheet. Headlines include: "Scott Walker Goes Sleazy," "Scott Walker Tells a Lie," and "Tell Scott to Keep it Clean."

Some fun now, hey?

What Walker's talking about is keeping the state's commitment to funding two-thirds of local school costs -- something Doyle did in the last budget over the objections of Walker's Republican cronies.

Walker doesn't say where he's running his radio spot, what he's spending or how long it will be on. It may be that it's running once somewhere and being used to generate free media coverage. Works for me.

Bride of TABOR left standing at altar

All of the elements were there to turn out a rabid, rip-snorting Republican crowd for Wednesday's public hearing on the Taxpayer Protection Amendment, which we prefer to call Bride of TABOR.

They moved it to Waukesha County, one of the most conservative parts of the state. Republican radio talked it up and encouraged turnout. WTMJ's Charlie Sykes even did an automated phone call, paid for by corporate interests through Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce.

If Mark Pocan's numbers are right, opponents outnumbered supporters of the amendment something like 7 to 1.

How embarrassing.

It's not quite as easy to turn out a crowd for some gimmicky, hard-to-understand, unnecessary constitutional amendment as it is for Citizens for Republican Responsible Government to get a lynch mob together in Oak Creek to complain about Tom Ament.

This Bride of TABOR idea may not be ready for public consumption, and there are enough doubters in the State Senate GOP caucus to jeopardize its passage. If the hearing was meant to show overwhelming support and put some pressure on fence-sitters, it probably did just the opposite.

If you can't crank 'em up at the Country Springs, you can't do it anywhere.

WEAC website has more.

It's Walker's vision that's bankrupt

"Help! Help! Emergency!" Milwaukee County's going bankrupt -- but it's not my fault." -- County Executive Scott Walker.

Darn that Tom Ament. And those public employees. And those state legislators. And the County Board.

They've all ganged up on Milwaukee County to make Scott Walker look bad -- and with an election for governor coming, too. Talk about bad timing for those chickens to come home to roost.

The headline and lede from Dave Umhoefer's Journal Sentinel story today:

Walker seeks rescue from state, unions

He says 'potential insolvency' forces tough decisions

In unusually blunt terms, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker is crying out for a rollback of retiree benefits and for aid from state taxpayers and lawmakers to help stave off "potential insolvency" he says threatens the county unless tough decisions ease growing built-in budget shortfalls.

If his platform in the governor's race is a big bailout for Milwaukee County, courtesy of taxpayers statewide, he is in deep doo-doo.

He's raising it now because there's no way to avoid talking about it right in the middle of the governor's race. He usually presents his county budget proposal in September. It could keep until after the primary, but details are sure to leak out at the worst possible time. So he's decided to get the bad news out now, farther from the election.

David Riemer, the former state budget director who ran against Walker for exec in 2004 (Disclosure: I was his consultant)has a few questions (I've edited and paraphrased a little):

How big is the gap between next year’s expenses and next year’s revenues?

How much state aid does Walker believe Milwaukee should get to help fill the gap?

If Milwaukee gets additional state aid to pay for its court, social service, and other costs, does Walker believe that other Wisconsin counties should also receive state aid for those purposes? If so,what is the cost of the total relief package?

Walker knows that additional state aid for Milwaukee and other counties isn’t “free” money but must be financed by either cuts in other state spending or increased state taxes. What existing state programs does he want to cut and by what amounts? (It seems safe to assume he opposes raising taxes.)

There is, by the way, no way to pay for extra aid for Milwaukee County or Wisconsin counties in general other than cutting state programs or raising state taxes. Walker cannot credibly reply that additional state aid for Milwaukee--or for all Wisconsin counties—is available from normal growth in state revenues.

As a candidate for governor, he should know by now that normal levels of growth in existing state programs, such as K-12 school aids, Medicaid and BadgerCare, and the prison system, will use up all available growth in state revenue. The only way to pay for more aid for Milwaukee County or Wisconsin’s counties in general is to cut existing state programs or raise taxes.

And now we come to the final questions that Scott Walker needs to answer.

He was elected in 2002, and re-elected in 2004, on a platform of fixing Milwaukee County’s fiscal mess without raising taxes.

He clearly hasn’t fixed the county’s fiscal crisis, as story after story—including today’s story of pending bankruptcy—makes clear. Each month, each year, the crisis in fact gets worse.

So, a final question:

Why does Walker think that a politician who was elected to solve the financial crisis of a single county, but who now acknowledges that under his direction the county is moving rapidly towards bankruptcy, ought to be promoted to lead the entire state?

---

Others weigh in:

Cory Liebmann of Eye on Wisconsin: Walker to Doyle: "Save me, save me."

Ed Garvey: Is he nuts?

When bumperstickers are outlawed ...

... well, you know the rest. Matt Rothschild of The Progressive tells the amazing story of Homeland Security's crackdown on bumperstickers in an Idaho parking lot.

-- This Modern World. (Click on cartoon to enlarge.)

Jensen does Walker a favor

You can bet the Scott Walker for governor campaign is breathing a sigh of relief. Walker's campaign manager, Bruce Pfaff, has been dropped from the defense witness list in the Scott Jensen trial, WisPolitics' Courtwatch blog reports.

Testimony may have been aimed at Schultz

The right wing blogosphere, in the persons of Charlie Sykes and Ragnar Mentaire, are bemused about why Scott Jensen holding shakedown meetings with lobbyists, just before the state budget was up, rates any news coverage.

The top line story was overkill.

I think it's a case of the reporter picking out the part of the testimony that he thought was news, but was not necessarily why the prosecutors elicited it.

Seems to me what they may have been trying to get on the record is that Sherry Schultz, the taxpayer-paid worker who spent all of her time raising Republican money, was the one who followed up and collected. They're trying to convict her, too. This from the JS story:

[Lobbyist Pat] Essie said his 1998 and 2000 meetings with Jensen were followed up by calls from Assembly GOP staff member Sherry Schultz, who is on trial with Jensen. She is charged with one felony count of misconduct for on-the-job campaigning.

Essie said Schultz would ask whether he had contacted the groups discussed with Jensen, whether they were going to donate and if the checks already had been mailed or when those checks might be mailed.

Schultz would "give me instructions as to what to do with the checks," Essie said.

Roger Ailes' latest spin on Iraq civil war.

Green tea at Bride of TABOR hearing

Mark Green's campaign for gov scores points by taking advantage of the large anti-tax crowd almost certain to pack a hearing on the Bride of TABOR constitutional amendment, a.k.a. the Taxpayer Protection Amendment.

Green lets Charlie Sykes and the Republican Party pull together a crowd of tax-haters in conservative Waukesha County -- where Green, a Green Bay Congressman, is mostly unknown -- then has volunteers serve tea to the multitudes as a campaign gimmick. Can't tell if Green will be there himself or not, but it's a clever idea to get him some attention.

This is probably nitpicking, but I have a slight nagging doubt about whether it is appropriate to campaign at a public hearing of the legislature. The taxpayers are no doubt renting the facility, publicized the event, and are paying staff and legislators to be there. It's one thing to testify and make political points, but something else to do actual campaigning. Or am I off?

Would it be OK to serve Green campaign tea if the hearing were at the Capitol? I think not. I could be wrong; it wouldn't be the first time. But something seems just a tad off.

I dunno. What does Scott Walker say?

-- Paul Combs, Tampa Tribune, via Cagle.

Milwaukee cops buy off John Gard

This was on my "to do" list for today, but Owen Robinson has done it justice. We seldom agree, so write this one down if you're keeping score. From Boots and Sabers:

Gard Sells Out... Again

This is outrageous.

A bill that would cut off pay to fired Milwaukee police officers charged with crimes has been buried after a lobbying blitz by the politically connected Milwaukee police union.

Assembly Speaker John Gard (R-Peshtigo) said Tuesday that the bill would not come up for a vote unless both sides agree on a compromise. The union wants its own bill to be taken up in a later legislative session. City officials, bill supporters and a political observer said that by requiring a compromise, Gard is all but ensuring the bill dies.

“It puts them in the driver’s seat. If the union is not willing to make any changes, then the union has succeeded in killing it,” said Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a non-partisan group that tracks political contributions.

Gard’s campaign received a $5,000 donation from the police union’s political action committee in June for his congressional campaign, according to Federal Election Commission records. Sen. Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center), the Senate majority leader, received $7,000 from the union in 2003 and 2004 when he ran for Congress, FEC records show.

This is a good bill that is perfectly in line with Conservative principles. Actually, the previous version of this bill, which was stronger, was even better.

I suspect that this looks like exactly what it is. Gard is going to kill the bill because the union gave him campaign cash. It is further proof that John Gard is not the honorable Conservative that he used to, or claims to, be.

I’m waiting for some Republican leaders to condemn him. Where are you Mark Green? Scott Walker? Anyone? Bueller?

Earlier post: Milwaukee cops give, Milwaukee cops get.

Wisconsin people think W broke the law

By a 10-point margin, Wisconsinites who think President Bush broke the law on domestic wiretapping outnumber those who think he obeyed the law, a new survey says. Forty-one per cent say he broke the law; 31% say he obeyed it. Twenty-eight per cent say, "Huh?"

SurveyUSA results.

Wanna be a Badger? Bash gays along with me

So Wisconsin will get a chance to write discrimination against gays into its state constitution in November. Can't wait. Makes me proud.

"If you want to be a Badger, bash gays along with me ..."

In the Assembly debate before the vote that was a foregone conclusion, it was a Republican who captured the essence of what's wrong with this picture. The Journal Sentinel reports:

Rep. Gregg Underheim (R-Oshkosh) was the only Republican to vote against the amendment, saying that it was an "anti-constitutional" measure because it singles out a particular group rather than protecting the rights of all citizens.

"In virtually no other area do constitutions prohibit private individuals from engaging in an activity," Underheim said. "We are taking a document which has protected people from their government and saying, 'We're changing the character of that document.' "

He's exactly right. The constitution exists to protect people's rights, not take them away.

And lest there be any doubt about what really drives this issue, we had some rare candor from Republicans:

Getting Republicans to polls

That history has Rick Wiley, executive director of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, confident that the amendment will pass here and at the same time bring Republican voters to the polls to defeat Doyle.

Doyle is facing a challenge from two Republicans, U.S. Rep. Mark Green of Green Bay and Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker.

In 2003, Doyle vetoed a bill that would have defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman, prompting backers to seek a constitutional amendment. Doyle said he vetoed it because state law already makes that distinction.

Both the Senate and Assembly passed the amendment last session. With the Assembly action Tuesday, the Legislature gave the measure its required approval by a second consecutive session.

"It's our job to be sure that people go to the polls to vote for the marriage amendment and the Republican candidates for governor," Wiley said. "Not only are they out there in force voting for this amendment, but because Gov. Doyle is vulnerable, you get a two-for-one shot."

Paul Soglin says the vote tells us a lot more about legislators than just their willingness to discriminate against gays for political gain.

Quote, unquote

"...legislators, individually and collectively, decline to make the hard choices necessary to truly control spending. So why should citizens grant them any credibility with this gimmicky nonsense?"

-- Beloit Daily News editorial on Bride of TABOR.

GOP breaks new ground in invading privacy

I'll bet Wisconsin GOP Chair Rick Graber wishes he had thought of this:

The Minnesota GOP’s Stealth Attack On Privacy

A story by Minnesota Public Radio reveals a disturbing new way that a political party is secretly grabbing sensitive personal information about voters.

This week the Minnesota Republican Party is distributing a new CD about a proposed state marriage amendment. Along with flashy graphics, the CD asks people their views on controversial issues such as abortion, gun control, illegal immigration, and so on.

The problem – the CD sends your answers back to headquarters, filed by name, address, and political views. No mention of that in the terms of use. No privacy policy at all. The story concludes: “So if you run the CD in your personal computer, by the end of it, the Minnesota GOP will not only know what you think on particular issues, but also who you are.”

These practices fall way below the standard for today’s polling firms and web sites. The norm for polling firms is to anonymize the data and report only statistical totals. The norm for commercial web sites is to have a privacy policy, with Federal Trade Commission enforcement if the web site breaks its privacy promise.

Without a privacy policy, the state party can tell your views to anyone at all. If you give the “wrong” answers on abortion or other issues, they can tell your boss, members of your church, or anyone else. In fact, these answers could get distributed to campaigns in your town during get-out-the-vote efforts – precisely the place where “wrong” answers can be most damaging.

The right answer here is simple. If you are collecting data and keeping it in identified form, then you should tell people. If you are selling your lists or sending them to other groups, you should tell that as well. That goes for all political parties.

– Peter Swire

There's also the political implications. Imagine incorporating all of that data into a voter file, so the party will know which buttons to push with individual voters, and which issues to stay away from -- all without the voter knowing they have that information.

Nuclear power? No thanks

There's a hearing today on the bill to allow more nuclear power plants in Wisconsin even if there is no solution to the nuclear waste disposal problem, which gets worse every day.

Clean Wisconsin reminds Wisconsinites that our state's granite was once considered as a repository site for the high level waste, which is only deadly for 250,000 years. Wisconsin voters, in an advisory referendum, rejected that idea by an 8 to 1 margin in the early 1980s.

From Clean Wisconsin:

Nuclear power plants generate a waste that is so toxic that, a half-century after the nuclear power industry began, a solution for its disposal still has not been found. In Wisconsin, more than 1,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste is stored along the shores of Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River, both vital freshwater resources, because of industry's failure to solve the disposal problem.

More than nine tons of plutonium, one of the most lethal substances known and a primary ingredient in nuclear weapons, are contained in this waste which remains dangerously radioactive for tens of thousands of years.

New nuclear reactors would exacerbate the nuclear waste problem. By 2010, the volume of nuclear waste in the U.S. is expected to exceed storage capacity at the unfinished nuclear waste dump in Yucca Mountain, Nevada. If new reactors are constructed, or if existing reactors are relicensed, it is certain that the federal government will again look to the Wolf River batholith in Wisconsin as a disposal site for the nation's nuclear waste, as it did in the 1980's.

Any plan by Dominion, the recent purchaser of the Kewaunee nuclear plant located near Green Bay, to construct a new nuclear plant at the Kewaunee site would dramatically increase the risk of the Wolf River being targeted as a disposal site for radioactive waste.

---

Are those anti-nukers just exaggerating the dangers and problems?

From Grist, the online environmental magazine:

Is This the "Safe, Clean" Nuclear Power We Hear So Much About?
Illinois nuke-power operator criticized for leaks and "incidents"

Quantity doesn't equal quality with Chicago-based Exelon Corp., which runs all six nuclear plants and 11 nuclear reactors in Illinois. There were at least four "incidents" at Exelon plants last week, including a false alarm at one generating station that initiated the first "site-area emergency" at a U.S. nuclear plant in 15 years.

These came on the heels of disclosures that there were eight radioactive leaks and spills at Exelon plants since 1996 that went unreported to the public. One spill of roughly 3 million gallons of tritium-laced water in 1998 wasn't completely cleaned up eight years later. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) plans to introduce legislation this week requiring nuclear facilities to notify state and local officials of unintended or accidental radioactive leaks -- or face possible loss of their operating licenses.

straight to the source: Chicago Tribune, Robert Manor, 25 Feb 2006
straight to the source: Time.com, Eric Ferkenhoff, 23 Feb 2006
straight to the source: Morris Daily Herald, Jo Ann Hustis, 23 Feb 2006