-By Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Constitution

Army bans privately purchased armor

From the American Progress Action Fund:

The Army has banned privately purchased body armor in Iraq, a decision that veterans groups "immediately denounced." GI's who have "waited months to be outfitted counter that substandard armor is better than none at all."

Turns out it wasn't a low heat bill year after all

There is a story today in the Wisconsin State Journal that blows up one of the reasons some of the Republican state legislators trotted out as why we didn't need a special session to allocate more money to help people with their heating bills this year. Some of the Republicans said we didn't need it because it had been a mild winter.

There are about 29,000 reasons in this story that make this not true. Xcel Energy has 23,000 people that are behind on their heating bills this year and that is up from 17,000 last year at this time. Alliant Energy has another 6,000 people struggling to pay their bills.

Was it that hard to see this coming for the Republican legislators? We do live in Wisconsin. A mild winter means we have a record number of days where the temperature doesn't drop below thirty degrees. Warmer yes, but you still need the heat on. Combine that with energy bills that went up thirty percent and wages that didn't go up even close to that much or at all, and you've got thousands of people that can't make up the difference.

Two for one

Marisue Horton wrote a letter to the editor that was published by the Wisconsin State Journal on an issue I've been thinking about with the Madison School Board race. Why are Maya Cole and Lucy Mathiak running a joint campaign and is it a good strategy?

A couple of weekends ago there were two campaign cards in my door. One was from Cole and one was from Mathiak. I thought it was interesting but probably just two folks sharing volunteers to get more done. But this week I received a piece of mail from the campaigns of the candidates with both of them on it so they have definitely linked themselves.

But is this a good strategy? Campaigns often link themselves with other candidates on literature, but it is usually an unknown candidate linking themselves to a well-known popular incumbent. Not only are both of the school board candidates trying to make names for themselves yet, they are running in two completely different kinds of races. One is running in an open seat and one is running against an incumbent so they might have been better off on their own using different strategies to fit their own race.

Horton, the letter to the editor writer, brings up another good question in her letter. Cole and Mathiak are trying to give the impression that one of the problems of the school board is that it is split into alliances. If that is true, why should voters vote to send another alliance?

U.S. Senate passes ethics 'reform'

Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold is again taking the lead in Congress but many of his own Democratic colleagues are unwilling to follow him on this one either. The Kansas City Star has a good article with an opening paragraph that really says it all:

The Senate passed a stripped-down lobbying reform bill Wednesday after almost comical discussions about why members who earn $165,000 a year couldn’t pay for their own burger at McDonald’s.

Senator Trent Lott seems to think someone has to buy him a meal for him to listen to his constituents.

Sen. Trent Lott, a Mississippi Republican, said that an extended ban on free meals would have made it harder for him to help constituents.

“I’m a big fan of Domino’s Pizza and McDonald’s,” Lott said. “Would I not be able to go to lunch with a longtime friend who owns those McDonald’s? Not only did I miss an opportunity to be with a friend, but I did not have the opportunity to hear the challenges and difficulties in running a small business in these towns.”

Feingold had a quick response for him that I think most Americans would agree with since it's what they do everyday - pay for your own meal. Feingold questioned why the lack of a free meal would keep Lott from his job.

“It’s really very simple: Just to pay your own way,” Feingold said. “I just don’t understand what the problem is.”

But, Feingold's amendment was rejected by the Senate 68-30. Can you say loophole?

Our bashful state legislators

What is it about the Taxpayer Protection Amendment that makes Republican state legislators unwilling to talk to the public?

Is it the fact that even the biggest proponents of the amendment aren't sure what it does and now think it needs to fixed? Again. Is it the fact that the more people get to know this rehash of TABOR they see it for what it is? TABOR with a new name. Or is it that when they took it the county they thought it would get the best reception, the public registered 230 against and 30 for it?

This week legislators again held a meeting on the amendment and they didn't want the public to attend again. In fact according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Senator Glenn Grothman said this:

Grothman said in his invitation that no notices of the two-hour hearing would be sent to the news media and that the intention was not to invite the general public.

And to add insult to injury, Grothman lets the public know he thinks listening to them is a waste of time.

"To be honest, we learned a lot more from the invitation-only meeting," Grothman said, comparing the first invitation-only hearing with the first traditional public hearing.

They learned more or they heard more of what they wanted to hear? Those pesky residents that will have to live with the result of this gigantic constitutional amendment didn't exactly say what the Republicans where hoping to hear.

Isn't it worrisome that the Republicans are only now asking for experts to talk to them about this? After they introduced it and ran around saying they all support it?

Note to Republican state legislators: The constitution was not meant to be modified by trial and error.

Selling the Madison School District

Since the Madison School Board election is coming up soon, I've been going through the candidate answers to The Isthmus' weekly questions. It's a good series that you can find here.

The extra credit section of the questions for week five has this:

Convince a family moving to the Madison metro area that Madison schools will provide as good as or better educational opportunities than they would receive in a suburban school district.

So you would think the candidates would really talk up the positives of the district right? Maya Cole, Juan Lopez and Arlene Silveira do just that. Lucy Mathiak decided to take a different route.

She starts off saying the district has some good teachers but them moves on to these rather odd selling points:

At the same time, I am dismayed to learn that colleagues, children of colleagues, and graduates of our schools are increasingly questioning what they see in our schools and hear when they listen to the board. In the past two weeks I have learned that a family member who went through the East attendance area schools is moving to Waunakee, in part due to the school system.

When I mention that I'm running for school board, I am hearing about friends who are trying to decide whether to stay in Madison's public schools -- the range of options that I am hearing about include home schooling, private schools, and moves to nearby districts. I also hear of people who decline to move here, or accept jobs elsewhere, because of their experiences with the schools.

This is how she would convince someone to send their kids to school here? It's along the lines of trying to sell a used car with an ad that reads "Used car for sale, really good color but the brakes don't work, it needs new tires, transmission is shot, the windshield is cracked and the gas tank has a hole in it."

There are a lot of different ways to answer the Isthmus' question. But when you are trying to convince people that are currently sending their kids to Madison schools to vote for you to become a big part of the school district decision making process, talking about home schooling, the Waunakee School District and people moving out of Madison because of the schools is not one of them.

Missing boys in Milwaukee

Since I can't imagine the state I'd be in if my child was missing, I'm posting the following that was sent to my inbox about the two missing boys in Milwaukee.



Quadrevion Henning, 12, and Purvis Virginia-Parker, 11, were last seen at 3:30 p.m. Sunday, March 19th, 2006. That is when they told Henning's grandfather that they were going out to play basketball in the area around North 53rd Street and West Hampton Avenue. Ten days later, the boys are still missing and believed to be in the Milwaukee area.

At 5:00 PM on March 25th, a family Web site (henningparker.com) was launched to assist in the search. The site displays the latest facts regarding what the boys were wearing as well as the most recent photographs and physical statistics. The site also provides a link to the latest poster in both PDF and JPG format. This is where the families really need your help.

Rep. Mark Green's tough spot

Normally I would laugh at the headline from a story in the Wisconsin State Journal about South Dakota's abortion ban putting the GOP in a tough spot, but the subject is too serious. I often find stories about the GOP getting caught in their own rhetoric funny. But this headline is about women's lives being in danger.

So Xoff brought up a good point the other day asking where Rep. Mark Green stands on the South Dakota abortion ban and when is a reporter going to ask him about it? We know he likes to pose for pictures with those fighting to end abortion rights and presumably, he likes to raise money from them as well. So would he support a similar law here if he became governor of Wisconsin? Women deserve to know. The folks Rep. Green likes to raise money from on this issue deserve to know as well.

Is he really on their side or using them?

His website says this:

Mark Green believes all human life deserves to be protected, which is why Wisconsin Right to Life called him a "genuine pro-life hero."

Which sounds to me like he would support a similar ban here in Wisconsin.

During a debate on abortion in Congress, Rep. Green said this:

It is interesting, some of the tenor of the debate today. Some people are upset that we are taking this bill up because it is inconvenient.

He was arguing that even though the topic may not be one folks wanted to talk about, Congress needed to talk about it. So even though the timing on the ban on abortion passed in South Dakota might be inconvenient for Rep. Green, he really should answer the question.

But what to say? Say yes he would support it and please the folks that he has pandered to for years with promises that he is their hero and alienate the vast majority of the population of the state that will vote for him? Or say no and have potentially thousands of supporters close their checkbooks and stay home on election day?

Tough spot to be in, but hey, the job of governor really isn't just breaking ground with shiny shovels and hoping someone will name a building or park after you. It's a tough job and there are a lot of hard decisions. The health and lives of women are riding on this one so we deserve an answer.

Welcome to the job interview Rep. Green. When can we expect your answer?

-By Tom Toles of the Washington Post

Fun with numbers

The full page ad I saw from the Institute for Legal Reform, a group that says they want tort reform, uses numbers in a creative way to try to convince people they are paying a lot of money every year for frivolous lawsuits.

The open with a long line that says frivolous lawsuits are driving away jobs, doctors and businesses from our state. And then they have these two lines:

And each American pays $866 a year in higher prices just to cover the cost of litigation. That amounts to $4.9 billion for the entire population of Wisconsin.

However, if you look at the tiny print on the bottom of the ad, that dollar amount comes from the cost of the entire U.S. tort system. They didn't flat out say frivolous lawsuits are the only cost they are talking about, but that is definitely the impression they are trying to give. They are hoping folks will call up their representatives and say they are tired of paying almost $1000 a year to cover frivolous lawsuits. They drive home the linking of these two facts with the closing in big letters - "Lawsuit abuse hurts Wisconsin. And it hurts you"

Of course, the entire tort system is not hearing frivolous lawsuits. There are a lot of people that use the tort system to right serious wrongs that have happened to them.

The ad tells folks to demand that the flaws are fixed but never tells you what the group believes the flaws are or how to fix them. Perhaps that's because this group would be happiest if there was no tort system. Perhaps they think they shouldn't be held responsible for any of their actions.

Please don't make us vote on this again

The Washington Post has an interesting article today about Congress not following through on voting requirements before President Bush signed the budget cutting bill that was passed recently thanks to Rep. Mark Green. You know, the one that does things like cut student loans and make it harder for Medicare recipients to get wheelchairs. Fun bill.

Turns out the version that passed the House was different than the one that passed the Senate so the House needed to vote on it again before it was sent to President Bush. But, it seems the House didn't want it on record more than once that they voted to punish their constituents for their fiscal mismanagement so they neglected to take the vote and just sent the bill to the president to sign.

Oh the mistake is a $2 billion mistake, but hey, I guess they figure what's the big deal when you are as far in debt as the Republican Congress has taken our country?

How many times do you think Rep. Mark Green asked not to take that vote again? Or maybe he didn't ask since he seemed to be willing to vote that way when his leaders asked him to even though thirteen of his Republican colleagues did not.

Welcome to Pierce's Grocery

A big hearty welcome to the Pierce's Grocery on the Northside of Madison. And hats off to the determined Northside residents that have worked hard to bring this store here. We have been without a grocery story for years and have missed having one here.

Anyone that has had the displeasure of going to shop at the Copps store recently on Shopko avenue (the one that took our grocery story away in the first place) will be so happy to shop at the new store. In the last month, they have moved just about every product in the store. Sometimes more than once. Every time I go in there I feel like I'm on a scavenger hunt. I have never had so much sympathy for lab mice in mazes.

I'm guessing they are remodeling to try to keep their customers from shopping at Pierce's with the promise of fresh new store. If that's the case, they have really picked the worst time to do the remodeling. I've just had a month of really bad shopping experiences there where I have to ask where every product I want is located, and now a new store opens up.

Copps store folks keep saying they promise the store will be better when they are done. I don't care what the store will look like when they get done playing musical product placement, I'm shopping at Pierce's from now on.

Why let facts get in the way

You gotta love the story the Wisconsin State Journal is running today about Governor Doyle and state contracts. Buried in the story under a headline that accuses Doyle of taking questionable donations from companies doing business with the state is this:

There have been no allegations of wrongdoing with the Equis and Crowe Chizek contracts, and both ranked first in their respective competitions.

But hey, why let facts get in the way of writing a headline that screams scandal?

Mark Green's new rules

Rep. Mark Green, Republican candidate for governor, has issued a pledge for the governor's race that he thinks both he and Governor Doyle should sign and accept as rules of the race. The first bullet of the pledge struck me as odd.

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

Challengers cannot win elections without talking about how they differ from their opponent, the incumbent. Oh lots of candidates like to think they can win simply because people will like them better so they don't have to bring up the incumbent's record. It doesn't work like that.

You have to give the people a reason to fire the incumbent.

So I wonder, just how does Rep. Green think he can win without even mentioning Governor Doyle? I suppose the easy answer is that Rep. Green put this out there because he knows it's not a workable plan so he gets credits from the press for offering it but won't have to live by it. But I also wonder, just who has Rep. Green talked into doing the 'negative' ads for him that he needs to win?

-Rob Rogers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Dancing around the tough questions

For someone who has never held office before, Madison School Board Candidate Maya Cole has the political art of not really answering a question down already. Below is her ‘answer’ to whether or not she would support building new schools at a time when the Madison school population is not growing. If you can find her answer below, please let me know. The other candidates actually answered this very important question from the Isthmus. You can find those here.

Cole: Madison schools are in the precarious position of experiencing somewhat stable or declining enrollment trends while being surounded by population growth outside the city limits. In making this decision as a board, we need to evaluate the process of how we got to a position of having to build a new school.

My first allegiance, as an elected official, is to go to the voters and explain why all the children come first.

There are many factors to consider. Dane County's birth rate is rising steadily. We need to understand trends beyond birth rates and use as many resources of data as we can. Our plan should include consideration of the demographic trends of the entire geographic area. I am concerned that parents of children attending Leopold have had to deal with unacceptable conditions at their school. We need a long term plan to ensure that what has happened to Leopold doesn't happen to other schools.

We need to take a hard look at what draws families to nearby districts. We should support the upkeep of our current schools. I would like to see an update on the age of each school, last date of improvement, and what improvements are upcoming for the physical building. We need to ask questions beyond the cost of building a school. What will be the cost of staff and support services? Will we build to cut down energy costs?

It is important to balance this choice with the other factors that keep parents in the existing schools. We cannot lose sight of all the other factors that make the district as a whole an attractive place to raise and educate kids. My priorities include a focus on equity, safety, proper upkeep of buildings, high quality teachers, healthy schools and a challenging curriculum.

Oversimplification

Brian Fraley has this to say about the protests aimed at the anti-immigration bills this weekend in Milwaukee:

Those in this country illegally have committed a crime and are therefore criminals. It really is that simple.

No, it's really not that simple.

We all encourage folks from other countries to cross into our country no matter how they get here by shopping around for the best deals we can get on items like produce. Every time you buy a head of lettuce for about 70 cents, you are supporting it. Every time you go to a restaurant because they have a really good deal on dinner, you are supporting it.

Grocery stores can offer lettuce that cheap because they buy it from producers that pay immigrants ridiculously low wages. Restaurants keeps their meals cheap by having immigrants wash dishes and clean the buildings.

Just let me know when you want to start paying $6 for a head of lettuce.

Those advocating for some sort of program where we allow those from other countries to come here and do the jobs Americans don't want to do and then go home when we are finished using them would be wise to look in a history book. Our country tried this once. It was called the Bracero Program. It was ended when many in our country realized how wrong it was to treat people like they are item we can import when we feel the need and they send back when we don't want them. The U.S. Labor Department official in charge of the program when it was finally ended called it what it really was, an update on "legalized slavery."

Many of the folks advocating new anti-immigrant laws pull out the national security issue to hide behind. We can secure our borders without punishing people that are merely coming here to work in restaurants and on farms to send money back to their families. U.S. businesses depend on that labor, which is the real reason we don't have more fences on our borders in the first place. Most people want the immigrants here, some just want to beat up on them when it is politically beneficial to them.

I have never understood people in this country seeking to punish immigrants that come here and work hard without causing any problems. Or complain that they don't speak fluent English immediately. Neither did the Polish, the Germans, or many other immigrants when they got off the boat.

How can anyone here judge an immigrant? Everyone born in the U.S. is just lucky that someone else did the hard work of getting here for them.

Words matter

Xoff and others are right to call out Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner and others that dismissed the rally in Milwaukee last week as an illegal immigrant rally. Calling it that perpetuates the image that many have that Latinos are all illegal and dangerous to our country.

I'm going to scold myself on misusing words to reinforce the point. A while ago, I did a post that was a lame attempt at humor about the lockdown of the capitol during the debate on the amendment to ban gay marriage and civil unions. My post reinforces the image that many have that gays are all leather pants wearing people that love to dance to ABBA. I should know better and the check on myself should have been - would I have done the same type of post using the stereotypes of a different minority. Of course all gay people do not wear leather pants and dance to ABBA and my post did nothing to advance the important debate about the amendment.

And Sensenbrenner calling the rally an illegal immigrant rally did nothing to advance the debate on immigration reform. Immigration reform is a very complex problem that deserves better from our U.S. Representatives.

Fighting the president from your own party

My previous post mentions the fight the organics community had with the Clinton Administration over the rules that govern the federal organic label and it got me thinking about that fight. It was a huge fight that had my old boss, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) in a big battle with the president from his own party.

I worked on that issue for Peter and had the attorneys at the Ag Dept. yelling at me all the time and Peter took a lot of heat from the administration as well. The Ag Dept. wanted to have complete say over what would happen to the label in the future and Peter fought them on giving them that power. He could of looked the other way and listened to the Clinton team when they said, trust on this one, we are on your side. He knew that even if the Clinton team was with us 100% on the organic label now (they weren't) it didn't matter because Clinton wasn't going to be president forever.

And that fight was only about specialized food.

Somehow the Republicans can't muster up the courage to even question the president from their own party on something as important as the fourth amendment to the constitution. They won't even investigate whether or not the president's wiretapping program is following the law. When President Bush says trust me, they just say ok and look the other way.

There is one thing we can trust, history books will out this Congress for the cowards that they are.

Wal-Mart gets into organics

There was a story in the Wisconsin State Journal saying Wal-Mart is going to start offering more organic products in an attempt to attract higher-income shoppers to their stores. Overall, it's good news that a large store like Wal-Mart is expanding organic products. It will help encourage more farms to get into organic farming and reduce the total level of pesticides used in our country. It will probably help bring down prices of organic products as well.

The only concern I have is that Wal-Mart may use their strong-arm tactics to weaken organic regulations to lower prices in the same way we have seen them encourage companies to move American jobs overseas to cut production costs.

I will have to put my faith in the well-organized organic community to stop any attempts to weaken the organic regulations. When I worked for Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), the author of the bill that created the federal organic program, the federal government was finally getting around to putting out regulations for a uniform federal organic label. The Clinton Administration was trying to allow things like genetically modified items into the organic label. The organic community organized a massive effort to beat back all of the horrible items the feds were trying to allow and they were successful.

Hopefully they can also keep Wal-Mart in check as they venture into the world of organics.

Don't understand, don't care

The Isthmus is quoting Jennifer Alexander, president of the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce with this:

"The health-care issue is clearly one of great concern to our business members."

But then she adds that while she only has a cursory understanding of the "Provide or Pay" proposal on health care, she's sure her group is against it.

It's a great concern to her members, but she can't even be bothered to truly evaluate a proposal before rejecting it?

I'm not advocating for the proposal, but shouldn't she at least evaluate a proposal for which one health care group has a survey of local businesses saying most of them like the idea?

The Badger Herald

Even though the Editor in Chief of The Badger Herald, Mac VerStandig, takes me to task for not worshipping at the alter of Wal-mart here, if you are ever down near the UW-Madison campus you should pick up a copy of the The Badger Herald.

I read an issue of the paper earlier this week and was really impressed with the coverage of the issues being debated in the state legislature. They had more coverage in the one issue I read than the Wisconsin State Journal has in a week.

They are the more conservative of the two campus papers but, I was really impressed with the paper and wish my local paper would devote as much time and thought into their political and legislative coverage.

If you are wondering just how much the Wisconsin State Journal shorts political coverage, check out today's issue that has county board races with only about three paragraphs and a few bio points for each race. How in the world are voters supposed to make an informed decision with that?

Walker walks away

Scott Walker shocked the weekend news with his announcement that he was dropping out of the race for governor. The only thing that I was shocked by was how early one of them got out of the race. Republicans are very good team players (much better than Democrats) and eventually one of them was going to get out of the way so they could beat up Governor Doyle instead of each other. Time will tell if they picked the right one.

Rep. Mark Green has always been the stronger candidate in the Republican primary race, but not necessarily the better of the two for the Republicans come November. At one time, Rep. Mark Green would have been the hands down favorite to win the governor's race this year. He was well liked by both sides of the aisle when he served in the Wisconsin State Assembly, is a good speaker and was not part of the extremists of his party.

Then he went to Washington D.C. and drank the Kool-Aid.

Rep. Mark Green is not the same person he was before he went to Congress. In Wisconsin he was a leader of his party and probably fought to inject moderate policies into the agenda for the state. When faced with the larger challenge of being a U.S. Congressman, he took the easy route of going with whatever his party leaders told him to do. He is still not an extremist in his party but he has helped the extremists implement their agenda while bankrupting the federal treasury by doing nothing to stop it and voting however they have asked him to vote.

How else to explain his recent vote to cut funds used to make deadbeat parents pay child support, increase the interest rates for student loans, force Medicaid recipients to pay higher co-pays and deductibles, and make it harder to qualify for Medicaid-supported nursing homes? Thirteen of his Republican colleagues voted against these cuts. Why didn't Rep. Mark Green choose to stick up for Wisconsin residents instead of voting the way his party leaders told him to vote? A leader in the Wisconsin tradition would have voted against punishing students, the elderly and children and found a better way to deal with the budget mess Republicans have created.

How else to explain Rep. Green going along with a war without question that everyone in the country but federally elected Republicans and diehard party loyalists is now questioning?

How else to explain changing the rules of the House of Representatives to protect Rep. Tom DeLay and his team even after indictments were handed down?

The problem for Rep. Green is that Wisconsin voters would have preferred the political version of him before he went to D.C. because they like politicians that are a little different. They don't care much for those that go with the crowd all the time. Green hasn't led in Congress so why should voters think he will do so here as governor?

Walker has his faults too and heavens knows I don't agree with him politically, but as a Republican that found a way to win in Milwaukee County despite some pretty harsh budgets he may have been the better candidate for the Republicans in the race for governor.

The gentlemen's club

The Mic 92.1 this morning reported on the Pro-Show with Lee Rayburn that Rep. Mike Huebsch received a $250 campaign contribution from a strip club. Rayburn then asked the obvious question - was the donation 250 dollars bills folded up individually?

I figured they had to be mistaken. Huebsch went to Oral Roberts University so you would think he wouldn't support that kind of establishment.

But I was wrong. His campaign finance report lists a $250 donation from the owner of the 4 Mile Gentlemen's Club. I googled it to see if maybe by "gentlemen's club" they meant a gathering of nice men. The first thing that popped up on Google was the website stripclublist.com so I'm guessing it is not just a gathering of nice men.

I'm just glad it wasn't an in-kind donation.

-By Tom Toles of the Washington Post

No room in the tent

Some Republicans have recruited a primary challenge against Rhode Island Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee. He is well, interesting. Here are some of the more interesting things he has done according to an AP story:

Republican Senate candidate Stephen Laffey once told a newspaper columnist that God wanted him to run for mayor of Cranston.

He spent $2,000 to soundproof his mayoral office because of fears peoplewere eavesdropping.

And when journalists noticed he had digitally erased a former friend from photographs on his campaign Web site, he suggested aliens were to blame.

But he probably has promised to vote lock, stock and barrel with the extremists currently running the Republican party so hey, what's a little talk about aliens here and there if he will vote the way they want?

Why the primary challenge? Senator Chafee has dared to take a few votes that represent his constituents rather than the Republican extremist views.

Republicans will let you in their 'big tent' but you might get pushed out one of the back flaps if you think on your own.

We see the same thing happening here in Wisconsin. Republicans have started chanting RINO (Republican In Name Only) at any member of their party that dares vote against their wishes. Has recruiting started in some of those seats too?

Please, please, please give us the guy being stalked by aliens in the Rhode Island senate race. The state of Rhode Island has three times as many registered Democrats as Republicans. And by all means, feel free to recruit folks like him to run for state senate and assembly races in Wisconsin primaries against any Republican you are unsatisfied with here.

Another minor reform the Elections Board should work on

Speaking of former State Senator Bob Welch's old campaign finance reports...

Welch also used to pay his wife to do the books for his campaign. Every six months or so he used to cut his wife a check for over $1000 for doing the books. I don't think candidates should ever be allowed to cut their spouses a check from their campaign account for work. Reimburse them for things they purchased for the campaign to use, yes, but not paying them to do things for the campaign. It's too much like putting campaign money directly into the pocket of the candidate and candidates could pay their spouse for work they never did just to get extra cash.

I'm sure she did do work for Welch's campaign but really, shouldn't spouses be willing to volunteer?

Welch didn't pay her an outrageous amount of money, but every year it was a couple extra thousand dollars into the family income. That's enough to take a nice vacation every year courtesy of your campaign contributors.

Your share of the federal debt

Ever wonder how much you owe to the feds because the Bush Team can't stop spending your money? $28,000 and change. Did he run up the whole debt? No, but he came in with the fiscal house set up by President Clinton to begin paying it down and instead has added $3 trillion!

The Federal Reserve Chief sees problems on the horizon with the large debt but President Bush and the Republican Congress seem to not be changing course at all.

From the American Progress Action Fund:

Since Bush has been in office, the congressionally-set limit on the total national debt has risen from $5.95 trillion to the current ceiling of $8.184 trillion. "That is more than $28,000 of debt for every man, woman and child in the United States." By this week's end, Congress will likely pass a resolution to dig the hole even deeper, permitting the federal debt to "grow by $781 billion to avoid a disastrous government default." The measure would allow the debt to grow to almost $9 trillion, an increase of $3 trillion since Bush took office. Last year's budget deficit came to $319 billion, the third-largest deficit ever recorded. This year, the deficit is expected swell to $371 billion. Even Bush's newly-appointed Federal Reserve chief recognizes the unsustainable fiscal course that the president has led us down. "The prospective increase in the budget deficit will place at risk future living standards of our country," Ben Bernanke said yesterday. "I am quite concerned about the intermediate to long-term federal budget outlook."

A much needed campaign finance reform headed our way

Yesterday, Wispolitics had this:

Candidates will have to disclose what they acquired with credit cards, not how much they paid to them, under an action today by the state Elections Board."They will need to provide the same level of details as if written a check to all the individual vendors," said Elections Board Director Kevin Kennedy. "The staff felt we needed to have more disclosure but we needed the backing of the board on that, and they agreed."

It's about time. I have no idea why the supposed watchdog groups of campaign finance have not been sounding the alarm on this one.

If you have ever looked at a campaign finance report, this jumps out at you as a potential abuse very fast. I've seen campaign finance reports with lines that just say "Mastercard bill - $1300.00". What in the world are they buying with that kind of money and why did it take the Elections Board so long to ask?

They could be buying stamps, paper, and other needed things for the campaign. They could be going out to lavish dinners paid for by campaign donors.

One of the worst abusers of this loophole I ever came across was former State Senator Bob Welch. He had numerous credit cards and gas cards that he paid money to from his campaign account. He paid thousands of dollars to them over and over. What did he buy with all that money? We'll never know.

But there are current users of this loophole too. Attorney General Candidate Paul Bucher has numerous payments to a campaign credit card for large amounts of money. He has listed a payment of over $600 and one for over $700 with no details of what it is other than "campaign credit card". He has numerous other payments like that as well.

His opponent, J. B. Van Hollen has what looks like credit card payments but he goes the extra mile to detail what the payments are for on his report.

No candidate should get to say they spent hundreds of dollars and not tell the people what they have purchased with that money. It's high time the Elections Board close this loophole.

Hot air

-By Ann Telnaes via Slate.com

Do I have an example you might ask? Why yes I do. How about this bit from President Bush from yesterday's press conference:

I also saw a threat in Iraq. I was hoping to solve this problem diplomatically. That's why I went to the Security Council; that's why it was important to pass 1441, which was unanimously passed. And the world said, disarm, disclose, or face serious consequences ... and therefore, we worked with the world, we worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world. And when he chose to deny inspectors, when he chose not to disclose, then I had the difficult decision to make to remove him. And we did, and the world is safer for it.

But, as pointed out by Talking Point Memo, that is not what happened. Saddam did say the inspectors could come in after we got the resolution passed but President Bush chose war anyway.

Madison School Board Candidate memories

The Isthmus has a running series asking the Madison School Board candidates a lot of questions and putting their answers in the paper (and online) every week leading up to the election. You can find it here.

One of the questions was:

As a student, what was your worst experience in school? As an adult, what lessons do you draw from it?

One of the candidates, Lucy Mathiak, had this for a response:

I'm drawing a blank. Perhaps the lesson is that no matter how bad something seems, "this, too, shall pass."

Seriously? It wasn't a question she was asked on the spot and had to immediately come up with something. She can't think of anything bad that happened to her in school? I'd have a hard time picking just one. Of course, I was taught by mean, old nuns until fifth grade.

Let's see, there was the time that one of the nuns told me my parents were going to hell because they were getting a divorce. Keep in mind, I was seven. Even if you did believe that garbage, would you tell that to a seven year old? I cried to God just about every night for years begging him to let my parents go to heaven.

There was also the day I tripped and fell in the snow bank on the way to school and everything in my school bag fell out into the snow and got ruined, including my flashcard that were written in marker by the nuns. That was bad enough but when I got to school the nun yelled at me to tell my mother to get a bigger school bag so I pretty much spent the whole day sobbing.

And that was just first grade.

What did I draw from these events? That many nuns are mean, old ladies that have no business working with little kids.

Care to share your least favorite nun story?

If you can't debate the topic, change it

President Bush criticized Senator Feingold's resolution to censure the president yesterday. Sort of.

Since President Bush knows he can't win on the facts about his illegal domestic surveillance program, he switched topics to the terrorists and accused Senator Feingold and his supporters of not wanting to keep an eye on terrorists. A comment that is beyond dishonest.

An article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has President Bush previewing the ads they intend to try to run against Democrats in the fall:

"...They ought to take their message to the people and say, 'Vote for me. I promise we're not going to have a terrorist surveillance program.' "

Feingold calls it like he sees it and fires right back:

"The president knows every Democrat supports wiretapping terrorists," said Feingold, who contends the wiretapping can and should be done with court approval. "So when the president says (we're) opposing wiretapping terrorists, he is being intentionally dishonest. It makes me feel even more strongly that he should be censured."

In the article Feingold also points out something I have been thinking about too - the ads the Republicans are going to run against him about the censure might backfire. They will repeatedly bring up an issue that is not playing well with the American people and may cause a lot of them to demand answers.

Feingold is not afraid of the ads:

"I welcome the discussion. I welcome the ads. The more they say this, the more people are reminded the president must be held accountable. The more Republicans fume about it, the more it's clear they have something to hide. I hope they do it, and I hope they do it a lot," Feingold said of the ads.

Nor should he be. More and more Americans are starting to ask questions about a program that Bush once said did get court orders, but now says doesn't need court orders.

Although Feingold should be pretty confident that HIS telephone conversations are being listened to by the White House.

Political stunts

The bloggers on the right keep calling Senator Feingold's censure resolutions a stunt. And this picture is what? Needed communication with the American people? How much do you think this 'needed communication' cost the American people?

If you didn't criticize this as a stunt, you have zero credibility calling Feingold's resolution a stunt.

Republicans out of touch with Wisconsin residents

If you want to know just how much Republicans like Senator Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) are out of touch with how most Wisconsin residents live, look no further than this article in the Badger Herald yesterday about Grothman's visit to a UW Regent meeting about the "Taxpayer Protection Amendment" he has authored with Jeff Wood (R-Chippewa Falls).

In it Grothman says this:

"Almost everybody in the state, unless their parents kick them out of the house can wind up with a four-year degree for a reasonable amount of money," Grothman said. "Even if we up the tuition again, we are a long, long way away from saying that the university is unaffordable here."

Oh and we have too many people getting four-year degrees anyway according to Grothman.

Yes kids, stop dreaming of going to the University of Wisconsin system for college. You read too much and we don't need that.

If only that was the worst comment Grothman made that day. The comment that truly illustrates just how far away Republicans like Grothman are from caring about things that affect the everyday lives of the residents of our state like rising tuition costs:

"Some people worked harder when they were in college, harder in the summers. Other people took more vacations."

That's right, it's not the legislature's fault that kids can't afford college anymore. The darn kids just don't work hard enough. Never mind that state investment in our college system has plummeted in recent years. If the kids going to college now would just work harder, they could afford it. This from a guy that works for a place that is trying to wrap up its work for the year by March.

Note to Senator Grothman: Stop hanging out with former senate candidate Nancy "I work harder than poor people" Mistele.

Not too long ago I was at State Street Brats with some of my friends from college watching the men's basketball team take one of their last beatings of the year on the court when we started talking about tuition costs. We were wondering just how much it costs to go UW-Madison now. So we asked the kids next to us and we were all shocked by what it costs now compared to when we were in school.

In-state tuition is now $5,618 a year! That is about what it cost for the out-of-state kids when I went to school. We've been out of college for a while, but not that long.

But don't ask Senator Grothman for help kids because it's your fault that you can't afford college.

-By Chad Lowe at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel via Slate.com

A seven versus and eleven?

Does ANYONE have George Mason playing Wichita State in the next round? If you do, you should consider a career in fortune telling.

A really poor rate of return

Deb Jordhal over at the Above the Belt blog has a post trying to claim that Governor Doyle is handing out contracts to firms that donate money to him. Jordhal presents some rather odd 'facts' as proof that companies are buying contracts. Most notably, this one:

Foley & Lardner: Former DOA Secretary and Doyle Campaign Chair Marc Marrotta's firm received a $50,000 no bid contract with the Department of Commerce on November 4, 2004. Foley & Lardner employees have made a total of $166,540 to Doyle's campaign, $66,000 from the firm's conduit account.

If the lobbying team over at Foley and Lardner is "buying" a $50,000 state contract for $166,540 they should all be fired.

I don't think they are that dumb and I don't think they are buying state contracts with their donations. Is it possible that a lot of folks over there happen to support Doyle's policies?

Voting to sink the future

Yesterday the Janesville Gazette also had a listing of recent votes in Congress and how area congresspeople voted. The listing of votes and what happened made my jaw drop. See if you have the same reaction.

The "fiscal conservatives" at it again - The Senate refused to reinstate the "pay as you go" rule requiring tax cuts or entitlement spending hikes be offset in the budget. Be proud that our two senators voted yes. Be angry that the measure failed in the Republican lead Congress. This means you have to...

Raise the debt ceiling to point we stop calling it a ceiling - Since the Republicans in Congress think we don't have to prove we can pay for anything, we might as well just start printing Monopoly money and be done with it. The Senate voted to raise the debt ceiling to $8.965 TRILLION! It has risen by $3 trillion since President Bush took office. Again, be proud that Senator Feingold and Senator Kohl voted no, but be angry that the "fiscally conservative" Republicans passed the measure.

Port security, we don't need no stinking port security - The same Republicans that were shocked and angry we were about to sell our port security operations to a state-owned company from UAE, refused to raise port security spending by closing a business tax loophole. (see how that's done Republicans, you sponsor spending, you match it with a reduction when you are in the hole). What good are tax cuts for businesses if a port and all the containers with the products of the businesses are blown up? Feingold and Kohl voted to increase spending for security but the measure failed on a largely party-line vote. The House voted on a similar measure - Rep. Ryan voted against it, Rep. Baldwin voted for it. The measure failed in the House as well.

And finally...

Sorry grandma, you're time is up - Even though most Member of Congress couldn't explain the Medicare prescription drug coverage themselves if their life depended on it, they voted against giving people more time to figure out which program to be in. I guess this is how they are going to cut costs with the program - hope seniors are so confused that they don't sign up. Again, be proud Feingold and Kohl voted to extend the deadline, but be very angry that the Republican led Senate voted the measure down.

This is voting reform?

An article in the Janesville Gazette yesterday had many municipal clerks saying they are worried that the new voter computer system by Accenture will cause many problems for voters during the spring election next month.

Delavan City Clerk Sue Kitzman said voters over the age of 75 were not even showing up on the poll lists for the city of Delavan. Elkhorn City Clerk Nancy Jacobson said she was not able to print the poll lists for Elkhorn for the primary in February.

Could be a very long day for municipal clerks on April 4th.

The state of Wyoming recently cancelled its contract with Accenture because of the problems with the company's voting system software. Perhaps now that a county as Republican as Walworth County is highlighting the problems with this system, a few state level Republicans will start to take notice of the problems too.

Independents fleeing the sinking ship

I haven't looked over the details of this poll yet so it could have method flaws but I found it interesting that more Independents favor impeachment than censure. From Talk Left:

42 percent of independents favored censuring Bush, 47 percent of them said they favored impeaching the president.

Feel safer yet?

Seems hard for the Republicans in Congress to put our money where their mouths are when it comes to port security. I guess it's hard to fit it in with all the tax cuts for the wealthy they have planned.
From the American Progress Action Fund:

HOMELAND SECURITY -- RIGHT WING BLOCKS FUNDING FOR PORT SECURITY, DISASTER PREPAREDNESS: President Bush says that protecting the nation's ports is a "solemn duty." But yesterday, right-wing legislators in Congress narrowly defeated an amendment roposed by Rep. Martin Sabo (D-MN) that would have provided $1.25 billion in desperately needed funding for port security and disaster preparedness, including $300 million to enable U.S. customs agents to inspect high-risk containers at all 140 overseas ports that ship directly to the United States. (Current funding allows U.S. customs agents to operate at 43 of these ports.) Congress also defeated a $5 billion amendment by Rep. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) to provide an additional $965 million for port security and an amendment by Rep. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) to provide for our emergency responder communications equipment. Evidently, congressional concern about port security was fleeting.

The real March Madness

--From Weyant's World at The Hill

Republican calls against activist judges spurring dangerous activists

Check out this story from the AP about Supreme Court Justices receiving death threats from people that think they are activist judges.

The fringe element is taking its cues from Republican Members of Congress.

Ginsburg said the Web threat was apparently prompted by legislation in Congress, filed by Republicans, that would bar judges from relying on foreign laws or court decisions.

"It is disquieting that they have attracted sizable support. And one not-so-small concern - they fuel the irrational fringe," she said in a speech posted online by the court earlier this month and first reported Wednesday by LegalTimes.com.

According to Ginsburg, someone in a Web site chat room wrote: Okay commandoes, here is your first patriotic assignment ... an easy one. Supreme Court Justices Ginsburg and O'Connor have publicly stated that they use (foreign) laws and rulings to decide how to rule on American cases. This is a huge threat to our Republic and constitutional freedom. ... If you are what you say you are, and NOT armchair patriots, then those two justices will not live another week."

Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Fla., a sponsor of one of the congressional proposals, wrote about the legislation on his Web site and in bold letters featured a quote from O'Connor predicting the Supreme Court would probably increasingly rely on foreign courts.

Is Rep. Feeney responsible for some lunatics words? No, but election year politics shouldn't try to stop Supreme Court Justices from reading things and he should think twice before trying to fan the flames with his actions. Clearly, he was trying to get people fired up with his bold letters jnto thinking that the foreign courts are taking over our Supreme Court, something that couldn't be farther from the truth.

It's not just the supremes either.

Worry is not limited to the Supreme Court. Three quarters of the nation's 2,200 federal judges have asked for government-paid home security systems, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said this week.

Plan P for politics take two

Both of the Republican candidates for Attorney General pounced on AG Peg Lautenschlager yesterday about her attempts to make Plan B available to women over the counter. Brian Fraley of DailyTakes sparked them all with his take here.

Don't be fooled by all the chest thumping about Lautenschlager's poor wording choices about her efforts. Bucher, Van Hollen and Fraley are using this to get attention to the fact that they don't think women should be able to get an FDA approved drug easily.

You have Fraley saying this:

This is, at best, a questionable use of scarce Wisconsin criminal justice funds.

Van Hollen saying this:

I can’t believe that our Attorney General is using the state’s resources to fight something like this

And Bucher saying this:

She demonstrated again today that she is too extreme for the top cop's job. She also demonstrated how she is once again using the position to further an activist, social agenda...

All spoken like men that will never get pregnant as the result of a rape.

This fight is about justice and that is what the office of the Attorney General is supposed to be used for.

It is about justice for the women in Wisconsin that will unfortunately be raped or become the victim of incest down the road. Justice for many of them will not be a trial. Many of the victims of these crimes do not wish to have a trial and relive the nightmare over and over. They should not be forced to go that route to get justice.

Justice for these victims would be making it easy for them to correct someone else's actions, not their own. Justice for them would be preventing a pregnancy.

I really don't think folks like Bucher, Van Hollen and Fraley understand just how often rapes occur in this country. When most people think about rape, they think about a scary man jumping out from behind a bush and raping a stranger.

Most rapes in this country are far different. They are committed by someone the victim knows. These are also the people most likely to NOT seek a trial to gain justice. That is why women should be allowed to have access to Plan B without all the political games folks like Bucher and Van Hollen want to put them through.

--Tom Toles of the Washington Post.

Tax cheats get government contracts

Republicans usually vow to chase down every last person that stays on food stamps too long, but corporate tax cheats get government contracts!

Now that they can't say they didn't know, the Republicans better go after these folks with at least the same level of passion. Could be tough sledding if some of them have campaign contributions from the companies. From TPM Muckraker:

Over 3,800 companies won contracts with the federal government despite owing a total of $1.4 billion in taxes, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee revealed yesterday.

It takes a special sort of CEO to get the government as a client even though he owes it money. But, as the panel pointed out, it takes a truly rare individual who will then use his profits to buy himself a fancy car, new boat, or a million-dollar property.

Senator Coleman (R-MN) is on the case so far, but let's hope he gets a lot of company on this one. You can find a news story at here USA Today.

What could have happened without Gard's chamber lockdown

During the debate on the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and civil unions, Rep. John Gard (R-Sun Prairie) locked down the chamber to keep gay activists from getting too close to the floor. I've uncovered the secret list of things Gard and other Republicans were afraid might happen if the gay activists got too close to the floor of the Assembly and made some changes in floor operations:

-References to village people no longer about people in Roberts, Winter, Glenbeulah or other smaller communities in Wisconsin.

-Instead of sitting Republicans on one side of the Assembly Chamber and Democrats on the other, the assemblyfolks are forced to sit girls on one side and boys sitting on the other -- and some secretly like the new seating arrangement.

-Numbers of speeches dramatically declines on mandatory leather pants Tuesdays as many assemblypeople are a little shy about the new look.

-Music from ABBA piped into the chamber reveals there are indeed a few secret dancing queens in the assembly chamber and they are not the gay activists.

-Gard finds a note on his desk that starts "To John Foo, thanks for everything" and asks about a road trip.

-When a staffer sends out an email saying the next floor session is going to be a drag, some assemblymen gets confused and show up with their feather boas.

-Activist bring back Senator Tim Carpenter to be in the Assembly.

Citizen power

According the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, some citizens in Waukesha Cou