Stay in school kids, it's probably warmer

As the legislature works through the compromise plan on the school choice program I can't help but wonder why the Republicans fought increasing the income limits for home heating assistance in a year with drastic increases in heating costs but thinks it's absolutely essential to raise the income limits on the school choice program.

Do you think the Republicans would be on board with helping more families pay their heating costs if a church owned power companies?

Consider this on the way to lunch today

In "The Skinny" section of the Wisconsin State Journal today there is a small story that will make you think twice before washing down a Big Mac with a soda.

A 12-year-old Florida school girl won top prize at the Benito Middle School fair with her project proving that the toliet water in area fast-food restaurants was cleaner than their ice.

Grandma and her boyfriend could be in trouble

The proposed amendment to ban gay marriage and civil unions could possibly snare an unlikely group of people in its hateful web according to The Coalition of Wisconsin Aging Groups (CWAG). It could also affect older, unmarried heterosexual couples.

Many older couples that are together after divorces or spousal deaths choose not to get married because it could seriously harm their long-term finances. Marriage can force someone to give up health care coverage and retiree health care plans often do not allow new additions. However, the unmarried couples might own a home together and could have given each other certain legal rights.

According to Tom Frazier of CWAG, the proposed amendment to the constitution to ban gay marriage and civil unions is so broadly written that:

"While these folks are not couples or partners in a married sense, this type of arrangement would come under scrutiny of the second sentence of the amendment and could be rendered invalid."

That's what happens when you try to put hate for one group in the constitution. You end up teaching hate and it spreads.

Coast Guard was worried about port security deal

--Matt Davies via Slate.com

Turns out the U.S. Coast Guard was worried about intelligence gaps with the proposed deal to have a company from UAE take over port security. You can find the story here.

The Bush Administration isn't giving any good reasons to trust them on this since every time someone asks an administrative official about the deal, they don't seem to know anything about it. It looks more and more like this deal happened because some of Bush's friends are going to make a lot of money from the deal. That makes this code green for buckets of money on the security meter than rather than the code black for oil I mentioned earlier.

I still think having a company from any country doing our port security is a nightmare waiting to happen. It's not just that the company is from the UAE. I was just as angry to hear they are getting control of it after a British company had it. It's bad for national security and our country's long-term economic security.

Making a list and checking it twice

Tomorrow the Assembly will vote on the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and civil unions so I'm sure we'll start hearing again that we have to do this because the Bible says so.

The crowd that tries to cloak their hatred with Jesus has always been a strange group to me. To invoke Jesus' name to promote hatred means you believe if he were alive in our time he would be more like Pat Robertson than Mother Theresa. Reading about Jesus and his examples makes it hard to come to this conclusion, but they do.

Jesus rejected the purity codes and rules that many use today to prop up their own fears and hatred of homosexuals. These rules also call for an "eye for an eye" justice system but Jesus refutes that in Matthew by calling on people to turn the other cheek. Is it not possible, possible, that he refuted the rest too and no one wrote it down?

Not even possible you say? Well, then here is the partial list of rules everyone voting for the amendment tomorrow must check themselves against. If you are free from all of the following, then you are truly living the Vida Leviticus baby and can vote yes without guilt.

No shellfish and pork

No cutting sideburns or trimming beards

No crossbreeding animals or plants so make sure you have not planted two different types of plant next to each other in your garden

And speaking of plants, you better hope no fruit you have ever eaten has come from a tree in the first three years it existed

No polyester or cotton blends

Circumcision is a must

Adultery is a big, big no that is punishable by death

No loans with interest

No sale of foods for profit

You better have done your best to keep people that are physically challenged out of the church

No tattoos

And the animal sacrifices that I am sure you have failed to perform are too many to count

Apologies

--Rob Rogers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Seriously, how loyal of a party person do you have to be to apologize for getting shot?

Counting chickens before hatched

Xoff finds that it looks like Rep. John Gard forgot to actually run the school choice compromise by folks before assuring everyone that he could deliver the votes on it. Of course they will try to blame Gov. Doyle but I'm quite sure he will keep up his end of the bargain and sign the legislation.

No, it seems the problem is with Senator Tom Reynolds (R-Church all the time). He is worried that the accountability measures included in the bill will keep schools from teaching creationism. Because why let a little something like the quality of education get in the way of spreading your religion?

Does this mean the righties will produce an ad with Reynolds standing in the doorway of a school forcing kids to go to church instead of school? Crazy thing is, if Reynolds could require church of kids, I'm guessing he would.

This about sums it up

--Tom Toles of the Washington Post

Amending our values

The Wisconsin State Assembly is set to have the final vote necessary by the legislature to officially write hate into the Wisconsin Constitution with the upcoming vote on the amendment to ban gay marriage and civil unions. Accepting this amendment would mean Wisconsin has amended its values to say some people just don't deserve health care and benefits or the right to spend their life with the person they love. It would also accept many potential problems with other laws.

The amendment language goes a lot farther than banning gay marriage and could have serious implications on many laws in our state. The language for this amendment is far too broad to just ban gay marriages. Similarly broad amendments on this issue in other states have already started posing problems in domestic violence cases, child custody laws and domestic partner benefits.

For example, judges in Ohio have dismissed domestic abuse charges against men who beat up their girlfriends because the state's civil union and gay marriage ban prohibits legal recognition of any non-married couple.

The proposed amendment will also put the health insurance and other benefits of domestic partners in jeopardy. So how about we rename this amendment?

How about "Pre-Married Couple Right To Abuse Act"? The righties could market it to abusive men and women before the vote to get their support. "Vote yes before your right to beat up your boyfriend or girlfriend is muddied up with legal protections for them!"

How about the "Health Care Savings Act"? The righties could market it to local governments and businesses to get their support. "Vote yes if you want a way to save money on health care costs by denying coverage to partners but want to have someone else to blame!"

Unfortunately, the possibilities are endless.

Our state has always been a leader on value issues. Our nation used to treat another group of people as second-class citizens without as many rights as others. Those people? Women. But Wisconsin led the way in giving them the right to vote and many other rights as well. Our nation used to treat African-Americans as non-citizens but overall our state was eventually on the right side of that fight too.

It's time for our state to lead again and show the nation that we value everyone in our state and give them all the same rights under the law by rejecting the proposed amendment to ban gay marriages and civil unions.

New blog

The AFL-CIO has a new blog for those looking to keep up on national labor news. You can find it here.

Homeland thought security

A very disturbing story emerged from Idaho last week. It paints a picture of the Homeland Security Department's role of keeping President Bush safe from political criticism rather than protecting us from terrorists.

A veteran who chose to put messages critical of the war with Iraq on his truck was tracked down by the Homeland Security Department and told he asked to remove his truck from the federal building parking lot where he is employed.

Really.

A man who served his country at a higher level than most would ever even think about is being told he doesn't have the complete right to free speech. Some speech is more equal than others.

Unless of course they asked the folks with "W" bumper stickers to move their cars too.

Now that we are all safe from bumper stickers ask yourself if this is what you want your security tax dollars spent on. Be honest conservatives. It will not always be your party in the White House, so look a little down the road before you answer that question.

Boosting the debate up a notch

Columnist Jim Schilken of GM Today has a good column in response to the righties labeling the state a nanny for passing a bill requiring booster seats.

Madison smoking ban enforcement

The Wisconsin State Journal has a story today about a Madison bar owner receiving a fine for people smoking in his bar. Dave Wiganowsky thinks he might be targeted for fines because he has been an outspoken opponent of the ban. I have no idea if this is true but the issues he raises about enforcing the ban are important.

This week I made one of my rare trips to a Madison bar and saw the problem Wiganowsky brings up. While I was at the bar, one of the other customers started smoking. The bartender immediately asked him to put it out. The smoker ignored him. I heard the bartender ask the smoker to put out the cigarette at least three times and he was ignored every time.

Should the bar be fined for this? Just how far does the city expect bartenders to go in order to enforce this? Should it even be the responsibility of the bartenders to enforce this? What if it starts getting physical when an intoxicated patron takes on the bartender?

Wiganowsky faces $822 in fines for a case just like this. As Wiganowsky describes it:

"My employee did exactly what he was supposed to do," Wiganowsky said. But he said it's a fine line at how far to push someone who is larger than his bartender and who has had a few drinks, as was the case in one of the instances.

"(The bartender) tried to tell the guy, sorry, we can't allow smoking in here, but he wouldn't put out his cigarette. The guy said, 'What are you going to do about it?' " Wiganowsky said. "The gentleman had a drink, then he left."

It doesn't seem fair to fine a bar owner for a bar patron's act or to expect a bartender to physically throw smokers out of bars that won't listen to them.

I am still torn on this issue. I really enjoy the smoke free bars but I know that my few trips to the bar are not going to keep any bar in business.

So let's hear it folks. Is it right for the city of Madison to fine bar owners for patrons that don't put out cigarettes when asked and should the city expect the bartenders to be the enforcer of this ordinance?

Also note - Go here to see that Milwaukee is about to go through the same fight on a smoking ban. The answer to the problems with the smoking ban is probably to make it statewide.

A positive news story for once

This has nothing to do with politics but I thought I'd post it anyway. If you are tired of reading about bad things in the news, go here and watch this story about a basketball player and it will make you smile.

Thanks President Bush

The Rasmussen Report has a poll up showing that President Bush handed the Democrats an issue that he and his party had firmly locked up until this week. When asked who they trust on National Security, 41% said President Bush and 43% said Democrats in Congress.

--By Dan Wasserman of the Boston Globe via Slate.com

Ohio adoptive parents must be Democrats...

...if a new bill introduced by State Senator Robert Hagan becomes law.

Hagan's bill is clearly tongue-in-cheek but he is doing it to make a very serious point. The bill is in response to a Republican proposal to prohibit gay adoption and foster placement.

Hogan even writes that "credible research" shows that adopted children raised in Republican households are more at risk for developing emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities.

How far out of reality do you have to be to think a child would be better off in a home situation bad enough to warrant foster care, but heterosexual? If homosexual couples would like to open their homes to take care of foster children or adopt any of the thousands of children that need to be adopted in this country, we should be thanking them, not spitting in their face.

Luckily, the Republican bill to ban homosexuals from adoption does not have the support of the House leadership.

Good work if you can get it...and keep it

I've been hearing rumors that the legislature might adjourn as early as March this year and now Rep. Mark Pocan has the rumor on his blog with some good questions about it.

Some might be happy about this since they can't do much more damage if they go home next month. But how in the world will Senator Dave Zien (R-Motorcycle) collect over ten thousand dollars in per diems this year to match his ten thousand dollar plus mileage grab with this schedule?

Why such an early adjournment? The cynic in me thinks it has to do with the Speaker running for Congress.

Profits to make you sick

Republicans like to say that health care costs are skyrocketing because of lawsuits. I'm guessing it has more do to with things like this from the American Progress Action Fund:

HEALTH CARE -- GENERIC DRUG APPLICATIONS REMAIN BACKLOGGED DESPITE PR PUSH: Food and Drug Administration officials held a news conference announcing the approval of a generic version of the popular allergy spray Flonase. "The heightened attention may have been intended to rebut criticism in recent weeks that the agency is falling behind in its review of generic-drug applications," the New York Times reports. Despite a backlog of 850 generic drug applications, the Bush administration has not proposed an increase in the Office of Generic Drugs's budget. Prescription drug companies are working hard to slow the approval process, as GlaxoSmithKline demonstrated in its treatment of Flonase. These companies know a generic drug "usually costs 60 to 90 percent less than the brand-name version," and they want to remain one of "the nation's most profitable" industries.

Perhaps if the Republicans stopped protecting the very, very profitable drug manufacturers, we could see some reductions in the cost of health care. Just how profitable are they? The top ten pharmaceutical companies make more than the rest of the Fortune 500 combined. And they are doing it by keeping it you and your family from getting generic versions of drugs.

Accounting 101

Here's a pretty good reason that the state legislature should stop trying to run local government from their offices in the capitol. They don't know how local government works. Or even basic accounting for that matter.

The Wisconsin State Journal has an article today that outlines one way the Bride of TABOR is going to keep local governments from keeping their economies going well. The proposal would treat loans like income. Republicans say government should run more like a business. Apparently the business they had in mind was Enron.

Jason Stein, the reporter for this story, puts the issue into perspective. He asks:

If you received a $200,000 mortgage to buy a house, would you consider that loan to be income?

Of course you wouldn't but Republicans that took months to put this together did and it seems like they might not have even realized it:

But the proposal's treatment of bonds is already causing some disagreement among supporters of the amendment. Co- author Rep. Jeff Wood, R- Chippewa Falls, said this week that changes are needed.

"I think there's going to be a debate on this and I think there are people on different sides of this issue in our own (Republican) caucus," Wood said, adding, "You don't pay cash for a house or a road. You never pay cash for a school, either."

Co-author Sen. Glenn Grothman, R-West Bend, said there was value in the limits, but agreed they might need to be changed to push the so-called Taxpayer Protection Amendment through the Legislature.

How could this not have been debated before they released it? They worked on this thing for months. Chances are they didn't realize the impact this would have on local governments. The folks at the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance were even surprised at the lack of thought that went into something as serious as a constitutional amendment.

Todd Berry, president of the nonpartisan Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, said some aspects of the constitutional amendment unveiled by Republican lawmakers this month show "some pretty careful thinking."

But, "I'm surprised that they included this bonding proposition," said Berry, whose group hasn't taken a position on the amendment. "It doesn't seem to be in keeping with basic accounting and economics."

But clearly, some aspects of this did not show any thinking at all.

If they were applying for the job of running local government, they wouldn't even get an interview.

Bucher blind to his own facts

The most mind-boggling thing about Republican Attorney General candidate Paul Bucher's new sleazy campaign website about Democratic candidate Kathleen Falk is that he can't see that the website is a testimony to the fact that the current system of locking everyone up just doesn't work. And yet, Bucher can't even see it.

Take Mr. James Socha, one of the few white criminals on the website Bucher listed in the hopes of not being called a racist. This man was convicted of drunk driving 11 times!!! Isn't it clear to everyone but Bucher that throwing this man in jail instead of a treatment program for his alcohol addiction is doing nothing but delaying the next time he is drunk on the road?

Even the case Bucher is trying to 'Willie Horton' Wisconsin with is an example that jail doesn't prevent many criminals from committing more crimes. From Bucher's sleazy website:

In 1998, Ward was sentenced to 2 years in prison for taking and driving a vehicle without owner’s consent. The judge knew something then: Ward needed to be incarcerated.

This guy was in jail and then got out and committed the violent crime Bucher is highlighting. Jail didn't stop him from doing this horrible crime to this woman and the taxpayers are out the cost of keeping him jailed.

I don't know if this man had a substance abuse problem and would have even been a candidate for an alternative to jail at his sentencing. I have a feeling Bucher doesn't either by why let facts get in the way of a good old-fashion political hit-and-run?

Who's the boss?

Eye on Wisconsin is highlighting an editorial slap upside the head to Rep. John Gard from the Green Bay Press Gazette. Here's hoping that means the newspaper will be keeping an eye on Gard as his primary election for Congress unfolds since they must feel like this election is their own Groundhog Day movie.

John Gard has always had a boss mentality and he thinks he has the right to make up the rules. He feels like he is projecting a Tony Soprano boss kind of image but it is actually closer to Tony Danza from Who's The Boss. Some of you may remember that right from the start, Gard forced the state to ring up thousands of dollars in legal bills fighting about whether or not he should have been able to break campaign finance laws in his first election.

He was fined $600 by the State Elections Board for exceeding the legal limit on contributions from committees by over $7,000. He fought this generous settlement offer for a serious infraction all the way to the Supreme Court. The state of Wisconsin ended up picking up the large legal tab. Tens of thousands of dollars spent because Gard didn't want to pay a $600 fine.

Ah yes, the first budding of a modern day fiscal conservative. Conserve my dollars, spend the taxpayer dollars.

Now Gard is forcing Northeastern Wisconsin to relive his election to the Wisconsin Assembly by copying it for his run for Congress. Will his boss mentality give us a complete redo of his assembly election?

1987 - John Gard moved to area that he didn't live in from the Madison area to run for the Wisconsin State Assembly.

Wake up almost twenty years later and...

2006 - John Gard moves to an area that he didn't live in from the Madison area to run for Congress.

1987 - John Gard brings in big party people from out of the area (Madison) to run and finance his race (including many state workers).

Wake up almost twenty years later and...

2006 - John Gard brings in big party people from out of the area (Washington, D.C.) to run and finance his race.

1987 - John Gard takes in over $7,000 more from committees and conceals it for months.

Wake up almost twenty years later and...

2006- We'll see. But the crowd he is hanging with in D.C. makes me think it is likely we will see some dirty tricks again.

Bucher angling for Willie Horton help

This week Attorney General candidate Paul Bucher revealed just how scared he is to run against Kathleen Falk for Attorney General. He is so scared of a Falk race that he is reviving the ghost of Willie Horton with a new website full of scary pictures of criminals he says Kathleen Falk will release. He knows this is not true, but he is hoping that the people of Wisconsin will be foolish enough to believe it. History says they won't.

Willie Horton you may remember is a hardened criminal that was used to attack Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election. The Republicans used a scary picture of an African-American criminal in commercials to frighten them into voting against Dukakis. They used the crime that they believed would frighten the white, suburban voters the most - a minority raping a white woman.

And what crime is Bucher highlighting on his website? A rape committed by a minority. There are a few Caucasian criminals on there too but the one they highlight is based on the Bush campaign's use of Willie Horton.

It may have worked for President Bush overall, but there is something the Bucher team might want to keep in mind. It did not work in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin voted for Dukakis despite weeks of the horrible and racist ads. Ads so vile that the architect of those ads apologized for them on his death bed. They didn't vote for him because they always voted Democratic either. When they voted against Bush and his attack ads, they were coming off voting for Ronald Reagan twice, barely voting for Carter in 1976, and voting for Richard Nixon in 1968 and 1972.

Clearly, the people of Wisconsin overall consider the candidate and then the party. In fact, Wisconsin has one of the highest split ticket voting rates in the country. That means they are willing to vote Democratic for one race on the ballot and Republican for another race on the ballot.

So what does this mean for Bucher? It means the people of Wisconsin are not going to fall for his "look at the scary criminals" trick. They know that a decade of locking up every criminal regardless of whether they are violent or not just isn't working for our state. They know because they have been paying the bill for this unsuccessful strategy.

Bucher's recycled "tough on crime" mantra is tough on taxpayers, not on crime. Wisconsin's prison population has doubled since 1995 because politicians like Bucher have failed to address crime effectively in our state. Locking up non-violent criminals is locking up too many tax dollars in our corrections system, but not producing better results. In 1993 our state spent about $278 million on the state's corrections budget. Last year, we spent over $1 billion.

We could save about $20,000 each year per prisoner if we put the non-violent offenders with substance abuse problems through a treatment program instead of jail. By some estimates, we could save as much as $43 million a year. We would also gain extra savings down the road since people going through treatment programs are a lot less likely to end up in trouble again compared to those sent to jail.

This is what Kathleen Falk has been advocating for and our state should follow her lead on this issue. Bucher doesn't have any new ideas on how to effectively deal with crime in our state so he is repeating a tired, worn-out message. The voters of Wisconsin are smarter than him and smarter than he gives them credit for with this sleazy attack designed to instill racial fear in white voters.

Method to the madness

--By Tom Toles of the Washington Post

We didn't know you cared

"I think that too many Americans are making voting decisions based on too little information and a too-narrow view of the world." -- Frank Luntz, Republican pollster at the UW-Madison

Funny, people like Luntz make their money by figuring out how to tell people as little about a candidate and the issues as possible. But in his mind, it's the voters fault.

--By Pat Oliphant via Slate.com

Rep. Stone pigs out on taxpayer funds

Yesterday, Xoff outed Rep. Jeff' Stone's addiction to spending and pork for his district with this post. That makes the Republican from Greendale last in a long line of Republicans living in a fantasy world that the Bride of TABOR will not harm their districts.

Stone is actively lobbying for a $42.5 million project that will put Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District over the 6% allowed under the Bride of TABOR. But this isn't the first time he has looked to taxpayers for economic help for his area. From the Wisconsin State Journal in 2004:

Lawmakers are pressing for direct taxpayer aid to two air carriers with hubs in Wisconsin while the state appeals a court order striking own tax exemptions for the airlines. The "incentive payments," which would apply only to Midwest Express and Air Wisconsin and their subsidiaries, would be based on the number of passengers each carrier serves and could total more than $6 million a year by 2006, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau. They would only go into effect if the state loses its appeal of the tax exemption and the two airlines are required to pay property taxes, said Rep. Jeff stone, R-Greendale, the bill's chief sponsor in the Assembly.

Working to keep Wisconsin airlines here and expanding is a worthy project. But just how does Stone think state or local government is going to be able to do things like this in the future with their hands tied behind their backs from the Bride of TABOR?

School Board Race

Want even more information on the Madison School Board Candidates before you go to the polls today? Check out the Isthmus "Take Home Quiz" section. If you click on the owl icon you can view the questions from previous weeks.

Not on my condo block

Susan Lampert Smith has a great column today on the 'problem' with having a successful nightclub on King Street in Madison. It includes picking out the people she would fight when the show she attended at Club Majestic ended. The column is not only funny, it correctly show what the new downtown residents are really upset about.

I'm sure there are problems at bartime sometimes on King Street and they should be dealt with when they happen. The Schiavo family has been working with the city more than they have to on this because they are invested in this community. But as Lampert Smith points out, the same problems occur when the mostly-white college students empty out of the bars nearly every night and no one is questioning their liquor licenses.

What is different on King Street? Hip-hop night attracts a racial diverse crowd and that is a little scarier to the new downtown residents.

The Schiavo family has been a long-time business staple of this community. They opened not one, but two businesses on King street and it has helped turn that area around. It would be a shame if the transplants that came later pushed the Schiavo family out of business.

(In the interests of full disclosure-I was a waitress for the Schiavo family when I was in college and they owned Antonio's restaurant on Park Street. I still miss the food there.)

What color should this be on the security threat chart?

From the American Progress Action Fund:

HOMELAND SECURITY -- ADMINISTRATION OUTSOURCES OPERATIONS OF SIX U.S. PORTS TO UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: The Bush administration has outsourced the operation of six of the nation’s largest ports to a company owned by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a country with troubling ties to international terrorism. The $6.8 billion sale would mean that the state-controlled Dubai Ports World would control "the ports of New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia." Some facts to keep in mind: 1) the UAE was one of three countries in the world to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan; 2) the UAE has been a key transfer point for illegal shipments of nuclear components to Iran, North Korea and Lybia; 3) according to the FBI, money was transferred to the 9/11 hijackers through the UAE banking system; 4) after 9/11, the Treasury Department reported that the UAE was not cooperating in efforts to track down Osama Bin Laden’s bank accounts. A bipartisan group of seven members of Congress is calling on the Treasury Department to suspend their approval until they investigate the national security implications of the sale. Such an investigation is required by federal law but hasn't yet been conducted.

I'm guessing the color should be black for oil. It's not a good idea to have our ports controlled by a company from any country other than our own.

Primary election is tomorrow

I'm guessing that since School Board Candidate Michael Kelly hasn't put much effort into his race, there hasn't been much attention paid to the primary for the Seat 1 of the Madison School Board.

I haven't received a single piece of mail and I'm the kind of voter that campaigns look for when they are mailing. I vote in every election. I am sure that I am the only person that is bummed about not receiving any campaign mail. What can I say? It's what I do so I like to receive it.

If you want more information on the school board candidates before you go to the polls tomorrow, you can go here. Not sure where you vote? Go here and click on the "Where do I vote" vote line toward the bottom.

--From Rob Rogers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Rep. Ryan tells seniors they're on their own

Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan (R-Janesville) was in the news earlier this week about the problems with the Medicare prescription drug coverage. A New York Times story that ran in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Sunday had Ryan saying this about it:

"The question is whether those people that are frustrated and confused are going to have their problems resolved in the next few months. The administration is really on the hook for smoothing out these problems."

Just the administration? Not the congress that wrote the law? Not congresspeople like Ryan that had a large part in writing the law? Seems to me that the congresspeople that wrote a law to help the drug companies profit instead of helping seniors get good coverage should be the ones fixing the program for seniors. The agency implementing the law is doing what congress told them to do.

Instead Ryan basically tells seniors to hope that the administration that has more than once proved that it can't shoot straight is going to fix their problems. Now that's service!

Is it any wonder that the article Ryan is quoted in also talks about how the GOP is losing its grip on the senior vote?

Want to supersize that?

Talking Points Memo has a post showing just how bad the corruption has become in the Republican Congress. Turns out lobbyists could order pork from a bribe menu!

The cost for a $16 million contract? $140,000 or a 42-foot yacht.

TABOR lessons for Republicans

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Gregory Stanford has a column today on the Bride of TABOR that should catch the eye of Republicans. He outlines some of the lessons that Colorado's experience with TABOR should teach us by listing some of the fiscal and political side effects.

The fiscal side effects should catch the eye of Wisconsin residents - state funds to universities took nose dive which caused the tuition to jump and the faculty to jump ship, child-immunization rates fell to last in the nation, roads went to hell and the economy took a nose dive.

But it's the political side effects that should cause nightmares for Wisconsin Republicans. The Democrats took control of the legislature for the first time in 30 years!

Even the Denver Chamber of Commerce, a group that usually leans Republican, abandoned them on TABOR and took an active role in pushing TABOR back. Their reason?

Tom Clark, executive vice president of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce: "For businesses to be successful, you need roads and you need higher education, both of which have gotten worse under TABOR and will continue to get worse."

We'll need them here too. Think Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce will reconsider their support? I'll keep watching for the flying pigs in hope.

Removing head from sand

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board is doing its part to help remove Senator Glen Grothman's and Rep. Scott Gundrum's heads from the sand with an editorial on their bills to deny teenagers access to the Healthy Women Program. They try to do this with some cold hard facts.

They start by saying that of course parents should talk to their kids about sex since teenagers are less likely to engage in it if their parents talk to them about it. But it's a sad fact that a lot of parents just don't do it. The editorial also states this:

In 2005, an average of 53,842 women were enrolled in the Healthy Women Program. In that same year, 9,170 who received at least one service under the program were ages 15 to 17.

Take that number and plug it into this study fact from the editorial:

A study in Wisconsin published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2002 concluded that, if parental notification for birth control were required, 46% of the teens surveyed would simply quit seeking family planning help but would continue having sex.

The result is thousands of teenagers pregnant or with a sexually transmitted diseases.

Fact checking logo debate

Wauwatosa is not the only school currently debating school logos. Today the Wausau Daily Herald tries to correct some of the misstatements found in letters to the editor in the debate over the Mosinee High School mascot and logo.

Many writers have bolstered their argument that Indians should be proud and honored by Mosinee's nickname by referring to "Chief Mosinee," whose portrait hangs in the city library and once graced the pages of the Mosinee phone book.

Fact is, Chief Mosinee never existed -- at least not as Mosinee residents might like to think. The portrait is that of a Minnesota Chippewa named Thomas E. Smith or Kah-be-nug-we-way, who was born near Grand Rapids and lived out his life in his home state.

It appears he first was associated with Mosinee years ago when the local paper mill adopted his image on a calendar that featured several Indian portraits.

Some have claimed there's no evidence that people are hurt when they're the victims of stereotyping. But that's not true, either.

Well-established research, published in peer-reviewed psychiatric and psychological journals, has documented the harm done to people who see themselves reflected only in caricatures and stereotypical images and words.

Finally, some have claimed that Munson and other activists want to remove all Indian references from society -- even city names based upon Indian words, such as Wausau. The claim is so absurd it hardly merits discussion.

You can find the rest here.

Choice words

Want proof that some of the people that support the Milwaukee School Choice program aren't really in this debate in order to improve educational opportunities for kids? Look at some of their responses to the compromise that was recently announced and it becomes pretty obvious.

From Senator Luther Olsen:

It's vital that we raise the enrollment caps on the Choice Program.

However, concerns have been raised about the multi-million dollar expansion of the SAGE program. Our schools struggle to pay for mandated programs, like Special Education, that are underfunded by the state. We must thoughtfully deliberate whether tens of millions of dollars of new spending for schools should go to those programs, that all schools must offer, or to a program that is optional, like SAGE, in which many schools, and most of our children, do not participate.

Yes, your kids don't go to the schools in the Milwaukee area that are struggling and that is part of the problem. Otherwise how do you explain that you don't want to ensure that all the kids in Milwaukee have quality schools. Why is it vital to expand the Choice Program for a few kids but not vital to expand a program that has proven results increasing student performance and would reach many more students?

Senator Olsen might also be interested in the fact that SAGE is helping some schools lower their special education needs. From Janesville Jefferson - "Our special education referrals continue to be very low. Due to the smaller class sizes we can differentiate and meet the needs of almost all of our population."

And then there is Dailytakes Brian Fraley. He thinks improving thep erformancee of kids through the SAGE program is too high of a price to pay. And he is worried about accountability, but not for the Choice Program. He will apparently take the word of anyone that is running a Choice Program school that it is top notch but the SAGE program is questionable.

It's great that the Milwaukee School Choice Program may have been given a long term reprieve with this deal. Opponents of School Choice complain about the lack of accountability in the program. But I have to wonder about the lack of accountability of the SAGE program.

This despite this and this and this. The SAGE program to reduce class sizes in Wisconsin has a record of improving student performance, unlike the Choice Program, and has been evaluated to show the difference. We have no idea if the School Choice Program is producing good results.

Smaller classes sizes is not some crazy experiment Wisconsin is undertaking on its own. Many states are doing it and seeing great results. The state of Tennessee has been doing it longer than Wisconsin and there have been studies tracking the kids through college. Here is what they found.

Those students have now entered college. Researchers have followed the students through the grades and have been able to document that their achievement gains in the primary grades continued throughout high school. Furthermore, they took the SAT and ACT tests at significantly higher rates than students who were in the larger classes.

Republicans for Lautenschlager

Yesterday, Republican Attorney General candidate JB Van Hollen had an editorial posted on Wisopinon.com about Democratic candidate for Attorney General Kathleen Falk's pioneering initiatives to better treat substance abusers and save taxpayer dollars by keeping the non-violent ones from clogging up the jail system. I'll post more later on why his editorial is an unbelievable display of how little he knows about the justice system as a whole (like he seems to believe that his office budget pays for housing prisoners), but for now let's ponder something else.

Does Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager's campaign realize just how badly the Republicans want her in the race instead of Falk? This editorial attacking the challenger in the Democratic primary instead of the incumbent over six months ahead of the race should give them some clue.

Calling it like they see it

The Wisconsin State Journal is calling on supporters of the Bride of TABOR to just cut government spending if they want to do and correctly pegging the driving force behind bills like this -- cowardice. Yesterday's editorial had this to say:

If the Republicans who run the state Legislature really want to control spending and taxes in Wisconsin, why don't they just do it?

Why don't they make the hard choices between what the state can afford and what it can't?

Instead, they continue to blame local officials and dodge responsibility for their own spending habits.

And they repeat something many folks have been saying about the Republicans here in Wisconsin and at the federal level that advocate reduce spending and smaller government but fail to live by their own words.

But when you come down to it, there wasn't that much difference in total spending between the Republican-run Legislature's budget and the final version the governor signed into law.

That can only mean that the Republicans who control both legislative houses are afraid to make some hard choices, or they think most of the state's spending is justified.

Either way, the proponents shouldn't need to alter the state constitution to try to force them to do their job. It's as if they're declaring: "Stop us before we tax you again."

Why don't they stop themselves? If they can't, why don't they step down from public office and let someone else do the tough job of setting priorities and sometimes telling people no.

Polling is trending toward Democrats in almost all areas of government these days, which leads me to believe the public just isn't buying the Republican's game anymore.

--Stuart Carlson for Milwaukee Journal Sentinel via Slate.com

Not so intelligent designers

Earlier this week, Republican Senator Glenn Grothman said the 'hearing' for the Bride of TABOR was by invitation only because he wanted a more intelligent conversation about the bill. Turns out, it may have been more to hide the fact that the designers of this bill have no idea what it does and didn't want to be embarrassed in front of the public.

Rumor has it that the invitation only hearing on the Bride of TABOR started off with a review of the bill from Legislative Fiscal Bureau Director Lang and his staff. As Lang was going through the six page analysis he and his staff had prepared, one of the Assemblyfolks asked him if the Legislative Fiscal Bureau could write down what they were saying to the committee. In other words, dumb it down so they can understand it without reading the memo. I mean really, we can't expect the people that want to modify the constitution of our state to read all six pages of a memo!

Somehow Director Lang didn't laugh and told the committee he was just going through the memo for them. Hopefully, he went slow enough for everyone to follow along.

Education experiments come with high price

The doors of the New Hope charter school are closed today. All 230 students will need to placed in new schools to finish out the year. What are the chances this school year is not almost a complete loss for these kids? You can find the announcement here.

And are they going to sell the BMW now?

Why tinkering around at the edges of health care doesn't work

Joan McCarville is the reason why politicians at every level can no longer tinker around at the edges of health care reform. Who is Joan McCarville? She is a 44-year-old non-smoking Wisconsin farmer being punished because one of her lung transplants didn't work. You can find her story in this article in the Wisconsin State Journal.

How will those against universal health care respond to Joan? She has played by the rules and is being told she cannot have another lung transplant unless her family comes up with $330,000 first.

She works on the family farm so they can't toss her off as a 'lazy jobless' type that doesn't deserve quality health care in their mind if they aren't going to work. She has health care coverage so they can't say she is irresponsible by not paying for her own coverage. She is in Wisconsin's Health Insurance Risk Sharing Plan and they are denying her coverage. And it's not the fault of the hospital. They cannot possibly be expected to pay for every person that our politicians leave without adequate care.

Our country cannot continue this health care roulette game any longer. People like Joan should not have to sell the family farm or hold fundraisers in hopes of getting the health care they need. Every politician in this country that doesn't advocate for a complete redo our of our health care system so that it provides everyone with decent care needs to go and tell Joan and her family in person why they think Joan doesn't deserve a lung transplant to save her life.

Paul Hackett a class act

Yesterday Democrat Paul Hackett dropped out of the race for Senate in Ohio after party leaders asked him to step out of the race. This after the party recruited him to run in that race instead of the House seat he ran for and almost won in a special election last year.

I heard an interview with him on the radio yesterday and read this statement from him. He is a class act and should have been treated better than he was in this. He could have been a lot harsher on the Democratic Party than he was in the interview I heard. Instead, he was pretty good about the whole thing.

The Democrats lose in the long run on this one even if Sherrod Brown wins the race.

Grothman believes teenagers don't have sex if he tells them not to have it

Senator Glenn Grothman and the rest of the "Teenagers won't have sex if we say they shouldn't" crowd have introduced a bill to stop 15 and 17-year-olds from gaining access to birth control from the Healthy Women Program. The program does something folks like Grothman say they want to do, it stops abortions from happening by preventing teen pregnancies.

In the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article about the bill Grothman displays an amazing lack of knowledge by stating:

He called the program as it stands "bad for a variety of reasons," such as the possibility that it encourages sexual activity among teens and enables greater spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

I don't know any teenager that ever decided whether or not to have sex based on a federal program. And does Grothman even know how sexually transmitted diseases are prevented? Besides having teenagers sign a meaningless piece of paper and having the adults stick their heads in the sand? Since we've seen that teenagers that take the "virginity pledges" are more likely to engage in high-risk sexual behavior and therefore get sexually transmitted diseases, perhaps it's time for Grothman and others to look at reality and learn that they are actually prevented by using birth control methods like condoms.

A 17-year-old at East High has a better grasp on the facts than Senator Grothman. She had this to say while she testified at a hearing:

Brittany Macaulay, a 17-year-old who attends Madison East High School, said during the hearing that she understood why some of her peers might not feel comfortable talking to their parents about birth control and sex.

"Teens need more access to health care and information, not less," Macaulay said. "This puts the health of me and my peers at great risk."

Perhaps they have parents like Senator Grothman. Would he even be able to have a conversation with a teenage son or daughter about sex? If he did, it would probably go something like this:

Son/Daughter: Dad, can I talk to you about sex?
Grothman: Why? You don't have sex.
Son/Daughter: Well, I've been dating the same person for 6 months now and we have been talking about having sex and we'd like to be responsible about it.
Grothman: I do have some information for you about having sex.
Son/Daughter: Oh good. I really need to talk to you about it.
Grothman: Just sign this piece of paper at the bottom.
Son/Daughter: Ok. What is it?
Grothman: It's a virginity pledge that keeps you from having sex and keeps me from having to have a difficult conversation with you about it.
Son/Daughter: But I am going to have sex, and I would like to talk to you about it so I can be prepared.
Grothman: No, you're not having sex. This piece of paper says you won't.

Is it so hard to imagine that some teenagers would need to seek answers somewhere else? Yes, in a perfect world all parents and teenagers could talk to each other about this and in the end no teenagers would have sex. But since we can't have that perfect world, ever, couldn't we at least hope for legislators that dwell in the real world?

Senator Grothman to Wisconsin residents: You are not smart enough to talk to us

Senator Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) seems to believe that the general public in Wisconsin is not smart enough to talk to them about the Bride of TABOR and the future of taxation in this state. But hey, it only affects every issue the state faces so why should Wisconsin residents get their say on it?

An article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel today has Grothman saying this about why he has chosen to exclude the public from the TABOR hearing:

"Right now, I want intelligent, helpful discussions," Grothman said. "It's important this be done right."

Translation - done their way. And that means they don't have to sit and listen to all you pesky taxpayers that want to have a say in this.

What to do about Fitchburg?

Last week a group of residents in the Swan Creek development in Fitchburg submitted a petition to move the children from that neighborhood out of the Madison School District and into the Oregon School District. According to an article in the Fitchburg Star, moving the kids to Oregon would reverse a 2003 decision that transferred the neighborhood to the Madison School District. The request has been denied before.

The article says parents in the neighborhood want to move their kids to Oregon schools so there is more certainty for their kids. They feel like they are always going to be on the table to be shifted to another school. They also feel like they were misled about schools when they bought their homes. If this is true, it is unfortunate that the developer misled them, but it is not the fault of the Madison School District.

Honestly though, for people like me that bought homes in Madison near schools that are now being threatened with moves and closings partly because of growth in Fitchburg, it's hard to feel sorry for the residents of Fitchburg. They bought a house in a large city that doesn't have a school district of its own. Of course they were always going to have an uncertain future and it probably wasn't going to be a fun process given the ridiculous state funding program that makes school districts like Madison addicted to fast-growing areas like Fitchburg in order to maintain a decent level of funding.

I do feel bad that they were misled by their developer and about the overcrowding problems at Leopold. But then I look at the referendum vote totals from last spring and it's hard to feel sorry for them. Fitchburg residents voted down every single question on the ballot.

They were asked to build a new school at Leopold to accommodate the growth in the area and they voted it down 837 to 813. They were asked to support exceeding the revenue cap to help run the new school and they voted in down 1017 to 632. Worst of all, they were asked to support additional funds for maintenance of Madison schools and they voted it down 849 to 799.

If the Fitchburg area residents don't want to help themselves attain their own school and don't want to support basic school needs like maintenance, perhaps we should let them go to the Oregon School District. But of course, there is still the problem that Madison needs the new kids in Fitchburg to maintain state funding levels. Something the state legislature needs to fix soon. So what to do?

It seems like the residents of that area would only be satisfied if they had their own school built in that area. But again, they bought a house in a city without a school district. Shipping their children elsewhere for school should have been considered a given. So should a new school be built there or should it be built on the far west side of Madison where this is also growth?

The Madison School Board and the candidates running for the two seats available this spring have a tough battle facing them. They really do need to work out a long-term solution soon both for the residents of Fitchburg and the residents of Madison. Both areas would be served well by a long-term solution, something the residents of Fitchburg say they want. But if the long-term solution has a large price tag, and how can building new schools and classrooms not, will the residents of Fitchburg even support it?

Perks

Next time Rep. Stephen Nass (R-Whitewater) is complaining about the perks the UW professors get, he may want to take a look at this list of perks for legislators at the Playground Politics blog.

From Playground Politics:

Legislators are given laptop computers for use by the Legislature. They can connect to the state's network from those computers while at home. They can establish a phone line at their residence for legislative work and bill it to the state. They can also bill a cell phone to the state provided it's used for legislative business.

You can find the rest here. And s/he didn't even mention the extra special tax break leggies have created for themselves or mileage reimbursements.

And by the way, Nass billed the state taxpayers over $10,000 in per diems last year! This amount puts him pretty far up in the pack of Assembly folks. Seems if he was so concerned about state expenses and perks, he might follow the lead of some of his other colleagues and bill the lower amount that goes to Dane County legislators even though they don't live in Dane County.

Milwaukee Public School Principal Buys BMW with school funds

THIS IS NOT TRUE, but could you imagine how the righties would be screaming if it were? Instead, it's a charter school and a voucher school that bought two Mercedes-Benzs mentioned in a news article so it's no big deal.

This story about a charter school in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel illustrates again that having schools get state funding without being subjected to the same state laws and oversight is simply not a good idea. The school in question has struggled to pay its teachers and may now have to be closed. Do you think the education of these children is going to suffer at all through this? The more than 200 children in this school should never have been put into this position.

Where is the outrage on the right?

But it's all about the children...and maybe some luxury vehicles.