If Doyle's veto had been overridden Tuesday, Wisconsin would have joined 46 states that already allow residents with proper permits to carry concealed weapons. Now, supporters must wait until at least 2007 for another chance at passing the legislation, and many on Tuesday promised to make it a campaign issue in this fall's elections.

In the end, Democratic Reps. Terry Van Akkeren of Sheboygan and John Steinbrink of Pleasant Prairie were the deciding votes. Both earlier had voted for the bill but switched and backed Doyle on the override attempt.

Flanked by Gov. Jim Doyle and surrounded by about 75 friends and supporters, Sheboygan native Terry Van Akkeren announced Monday he is seeking a third term in the state Assembly.

Van Akkeren, 52, a Democrat first elected to represent the 26th Assembly District in 2002, made his formal announcement at Hops Haven Brew Haus, 1327 N. 14th St.

Van Akkeren said in an interview that if elected, he would work to provide adequate funding for local public schools and cities.

"That's the best way to control property taxes is if we send money from the state here, that then goes directly to help the city keep their budget down and help the schools keep their budget down," Van Akkeren said.

(Madison, WI)...Prosecutors in the bid-rigging trial of the Doyle administration are exposing an organized cover-up by Jim Doyle's top officials to deceive the public over the governor's personal involvement in his Travel-gate scandal. Statements made by Doyle and his aides are in direct conflict with evidence presented in a bi-partisan investigation into pay-to-play in Jim Doyle's administration.

According to prosecutors, Jim Doyle personally met with Adelman Travel officials about a lucrative state travel contract in April of 2004. In attempts to distance themselves from the scandal, Doyle Administration officials have said the travel contract "never registered on the radar" of Jim Doyle or his political appointees. Yet notes from the meeting specifically state that Doyle's "maxed out" campaign donor pushed for a master contract to be "enforced from the top." The Chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, Rick Graber, says Doyle's fingerprints are all over the Travel-gate scandal.

"Based on what has been presented in the court room so far, it looks like there was an organized cover-up from Doyle officials to conceal the truth from the taxpayers," Graber said, "The facts we've learned certainly seem to show that Jim Doyle and his top aides were very much involved in the travel contract that went to their campaign donor - even though they previously said otherwise."

According to the Doyle Administration:

...Marotta said the contract was "very, very small" and never registered on the radar of anyone in upper management. "Nobody at that level would have ever thought about it," Marotta said. - former DOA head and current Doyle campaign chair Mark Marotta in the Wisconsin State Journal, January 26, 2006.

"We'll see," he said. "I don't know Georgia Thompson. I had nothing to do with the contract. I have been repeatedly assured that the correct procedures were followed in how it was done. The U.S. attorney may have a different view of that. He has a job to do, and we'll see what the facts are." - Jim Doyle in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, January 27, 2006

According to Federal Prosecutors:

Both Doyle and Marotta met with Adelman officials about the travel contract. According to a prosecution witness, Thompson said she did not know "how I'm going to tell my bosses it's not Adelman" after the company failed to get the highest score from contract evaluators.

Two Adelman Travel officials have donated $20,000 to Jim Doyle's re-election campaign - the maximum allowed by state law. Jim Doyle has kept that money for 128 days since canceling the deal because of media and public scrutiny.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was the easy winner of a straw poll Friday night that tested 2008 presidential candidate support at the Minnesota Republican Party state convention.

Gingrich got about 40 percent of the 540 votes cast, putting him far ahead of Virginia's Sen. George Allen, who got about 15 percent. Next were Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Arizona Sen. John McCain, each with about 10 percent.

"This shows activists think that Gingrich has the cachet to help set and drive the conservative agenda, just as he did when he led the Republican takeover of the House in 1994," said Tony Sutton, a Gingrich supporter and secretary-treasurer of the party. "He and Ronald Reagan were the two most important conservatives in the last 30 years."

A self-described "casual acquaintance" of Susan and Lev Baldwin informed me over the weekend that I owe them an apology for a recent "attack" and suggested I don't really know how pensions work.

So here goes.

I would hereby like to apologize for not realizing that, in Milwaukee County, it is wholly understandable that a couple of former government employees should have combined annual pensions of over $110,000 a year.

And that one of them, Susan, should be suing for even more than the $52,000 a year she currently gets while her husband takes in about $59,000.

And, I guess, for not realizing it is also completely appropriate that a former sheriff like Lev be able to retire with an additional $333,000 lump sum "backdrop" at the advanced age of 54.

The Legislative Audit Bureau has completed its review of Fish and Wildlife funding at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. An initial review of the summary of the audit is not encouraging.

Amazingly, the DNR’s accounting system does not link revenues from user fees, including the different types of hunting and fishing licenses, to particular expenditures.

This is why hunters and anglers have been skeptical of the DNR. Many of us contend the DNR uses our fees to fund and staff a liberal environmental activist agenda.

Jim Doyle's DNR is so woefully managed that the Audit Bureau had to undertake significant audit steps to categorize expenditures according to their purpose and primary beneficiaries.

What the Audit Bureau uncovered is alarming.

Only 57.3 percent of user fee–funded expenditures in FY 2004-05 were spent primarily for the benefit of those who provided those fees.

The audit “ also found that 2.4 percent of the $68.2 million in user fees expended in that year, or $1.6 million, did not directly benefit hunters and anglers.”

And a whopping 11.1 percent went to administrative costs (read feeding the bureaucracy).

That’s right:

User fees funded $7.5 million of DNR’s administrative costs at the department and division levels in FY 2004-05 and represented 11.1 percent of all user fee–funded expenditures.

To assess the financial condition of the Fish and Wildlife Account, we examined its year-end balance from FY 2000-01 through FY 2004-05. We found that expenditures exceeded revenues each year, and the account’s ending balance declined significantly.

The fate of Georgia Thompson, a purchasing division supervisor, will likely determine whether more charges and other defendants will follow in the investigation Republicans have dubbed "Travelgate."

Thompson, 56, of Waunakee, was on a team of evaluators that reviewed bids for the three-year contract to handle travel arrangements for state employees. It ultimately was awarded to Adelman Travel, whose chief executive, Craig Adelman, made $10,000 in donations to Gov. Jim Doyle over a 10-month period.

Thompson is charged with two felonies: causing misapplication of funds and participating in a scheme to defraud the State of Wisconsin of the right to honest services. The indictment does not allege a pay-to-play scheme in which the contract was awarded in exchange for the donations. Rather, it alleges that Adelman Travel would not have gotten the contract if Thompson had not illegally inflated the firm's scores. Thompson steered the contract to Adelman "to cause political advantage for her supervisors" and to bolster her job security, according to the indictment.

Thompson has pleaded not guilty. Her attorney, Stephen Hurley of Madison, insists no crime has been committed. The prosecution alleges that Thompson did the right thing for the wrong reasons, which isn't illegal, he said in February. Because the committee members subjectively arrived at their scores for vendors, there was no way to illegally inflate them, he said.

The criminal charge against Thompson has turned the issue of corruption in state contracting into a major focus of the campaign for governor.

Doyle, a Democrat up for re-election in November, has known Adelman for decades. Adelman gave the Doyle campaign the maximum $10,000 allowed by law before and after the process that awarded the contract. A company board member, Mitchell Fromstein, also gave $10,000 after the contract was awarded.

For Republican leaders looking to oust Doyle, the charges against Thompson prompted a name for the scandal - "Travelgate" - and they began demanding that the Doyle campaign return the donations. He has not.

Not returning the donations has proven to be a tactical mistake by Doyle. Imagine how much better the story would have read if he had.

Doyle has returned the contributions from Adelman and Fromstein, and he is on record saying, "I am setting aside these contributions, not because they are tainted, but because there must be no doubt in the minds of Wisconsin citizens that my Administration and my campaign are both run ethically. I am confident that at the conclusion of this case it will become clear that my Adminstration did not harm taxpayers for the benefit of my campaign."

Actually, this isn'’t a light day. Just got a call (actually a series of calls), saying my dad's in surgery right now. The heart transplant is going on today.

Thanks ahead of time for the thoughts and prayers.