Some Briefs

• Following up more on Feingold and censure, I'll note this story from today's paper:

  Doubts about the legality of the government's once-secret domestic surveillance program can be found among both liberal and conservative scholars and on both sides of the aisle in Congress.
  
  In other words, unlike his proposal for censure, Feingold's claims about "illegal wiretapping" are well within the mainstream of congressional debate on the issue.

  
  
• Barbara Miner, in this week's Shepherd Express, has a good rundown of why the recent Milwaukee voucher expansion bill is a bad deal:

  The winners and losers are clear in the deal that lifts enrollment at Milwaukee’s voucher schools.
  
  Winners include Republicans, voucher schools and eager entrepreneurs hoping to open a private school regardless of whether they know anything about education.
  
  Losers include Milwaukee taxpayers, the Milwaukee Public Schools and anyone who cares about public accountability for tax-funded programs.

  
  
• Joel McNally wonders if Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker's bad fiscal management is merely incompetence, or could it be sabotage?

  Usually, when a politician seeks higher office, he attempts to portray himself as some sort of financial miracle worker whose management success has earned him the right to take on ever more daunting economic challenges.
  
  Instead, Walker compares his operation of county government for the past four years to the growing financial disaster facing the nation's airline industry. [. . .] Walker's announcement is particularly amusing because, until now, the centerpiece of Walker's campaign for governor is that as county executive he has submitted a tax freeze budget every year.
  
  Well, guess what happens when a conservative politician freezes taxes year after year while the costs of government continue to go up? Looming financial insolvency verging on bankruptcy. You can dismiss it as incompetence if you want. But what if it's something even more diabolical? What if it's actually a clever plot to destroy government from within?

  
  
• Conservatives can say what they want about "Bush Derangemnet Syndrome," but Barbara O'Brien has been tracking Liberal Derangement Syndrome.