WI-05: Race Profile, and Kennedy's Defense of the Middle Class

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this morning, in its series of profiles of the local races, offers a shallow but accurate look at the 5th CD race. The story hits only two issues--immigration and the war in Iraq--and doesn't get into any of the things that should really matter to the voters in the 5th, things like F. jim Sensenbrenner's jet-setting on the dime of lobbyists or the other things that led Rolling Stone to call him the country's second-worst member of Congress.

The article also doesn't bring up what Laurel Walker did the other day--the history F. Jim has with Green candidate Bob Levis (photo here).

It also doesn't bring up that which the paper's two self-styled muckrakers think is important--that Bryan Kenney isn't rich like Sensenbrenner. I almost laughed aloud, in fact, reading this line:

Describing his critics as "elitists," Sensenbrenner said most people in southeastern Wisconsin want to combat illegal immigration through tougher controls on America's borders.

Elitist? I'm sorry, but Bryan Kennedy doesn't have an elitist bone in his body. I think F. Jim's got a case of pot-kettle syndrome.

That race profile is buried on page B6; however, today the paper has also run on its op-ed page a brief essay by Kennedy where he defends his campaign and explains why you don't see many middle-class folk like him running for Congress:

Polls have shown that Congress has never been so unpopular with the people it's supposed to represent [16% approval--ed.]. There's a simple reason for this disconnect: Congress isn't made up of normal Americans like you and me. We have a system "of, by and for the rich." Middle-class people are systematically discouraged from running for office.

Teachers, carpenters and Wal-Mart employees are unlikely to socialize in wealthy circles, which makes fund raising more difficult. In addition, the major political parties favor wealthy candidates who can finance their own campaigns.

The result of these realities is that the middle class is terribly underrepresented in the halls of power. Every election, we send the wealthy to Congress and expect them to fight for us. Some of them do. Most don't because they simply don't know how. That is why we need more middle-class voices in Congress.

Middle-class voices are stifled by millions of dollars from lobbyists and huge corporations. If we want to get anything else done, we have to remove the special interest money and corruption from our government first. I believe that middle-class people are better able to understand the problems most Americans face and that middle-class people will do a better job of fighting for the interests of average Americans.

I have a problem with Bryan's using disconnect as a noun, but I suspect that the other side of the Cheddarsphere will be most offended by normal. But I defy anyone to explain to me how F. Jim, his extemist policies, or his behavior of late is even close to normal. It's not--he's not. A Bryan Kennedy win in a couple weeks would be a victory for normalcy and sanity. Let's see if we can't make it happen.

Friday Random Ten

The arena football is coming back to Milwaukee! Edition

1. "The Captain" Kasey Chambers from The Captain
2. "Anything With Wings" Carrie Newcomer from Bare to the Bone
3. "How Long?" The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band from Acoustic
4. "Superhero Soup" the Nields from 'Mousse
5. "The Burren" Don Conoscenti from Extremely Live
6. "Voice of Harold" R.E.M. from Dead Letter Office
7. "Happytown (All Right with Me)" Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer from Tanglewood Tree
8. "Van Diemen's Land" U2 from Rattle and Hum
9. "Born at the Right Time" Paul Simon from Rhythm of the Saints
10. "The Needle and the Damage Done" Neil Young from Harvest

ScandalGate

I wasn't going to write much about the leaking of the State Senate Democratic Campaign Committee's draft strategy memos to conservative bloggers, mostly because one, there's nothing in them that surprised me, and two, I don't want to give any credibility to the Right Cheddarsphereans who are shocked--just shocked!--that such a document exists, and that the party committee recognizes that it has allies among independent groups. (Like there isn't a GOP memo just like it somewhere, with WMC and Pro-Life WI and Julaine Appling in it.)

And then I read this:

Elections Board lawyer George Dunst said that at first glance, the relationship between the Democrats and outside groups appeared legal.

Dunst, if you recall, is the guy who gave Mark Green the go-ahead to violate state and federal laws by transferring money from his congressional campaign account to his state account.

We're so screwed.

We're Number Two!

F. Jim Sensenbrenner is so bad at what he does, he can't even manage to win the title of Worst Congressman. No, he clocks in at a sad number two:

No politician better embodies the zealotry of the 109th Congress than Sensenbrenner, chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee. His solution to hot-button issues is always the same: Lock 'em up. Sensenbrenner has proposed legislation that would turn 12 million undocumented immigrants into felons, subject any adult selling a joint to a teenager to at least ten years in prison, and incarcerate college kids for failing to narc on their hallmates. He also wants to prosecute anyone who utters an obscenity on the air. Big fines just aren't tough enough for indecent broadcasts: As Sensenbrenner told a group of cable executives last year, "I'd prefer using the criminal process rather than the regulatory process."

In addition to his assault on free speech, Sensenbrenner has also played a major role in curtailing civil liberties. He was the lead House sponsor of the Patriot Act, which gives the government broad powers to spy on Americans. Although the measure was intended to stop terrorists, Sensenbrenner insists it should also be used in routine criminal cases.

Sensenbrenner's iron-fisted rule of the judiciary committee was on nationwide display last year during a televised debate over reauthorization of the Patriot Act. When Democrats began discussing the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo, the chairman abruptly ended the meeting and cut off their microphones. When Democrats refused to leave the room, Sensenbrenner's staff pulled the plug on C-Span and turned out the lights. As The Daily Show host Jon Stewart put it, "He literally took his gavel and went home." [. . .]

He also enjoys the perks of office: No congressman has racked up more frequent-flier miles on junkets sponsored by corporate lobbyists. While he was enjoying the good life last year, Sensenbrenner took time out to make life tougher on working families, winning approval for a bill that makes it harder for Americans overwhelmed by debt to declare bankruptcy. The congressman refused to consider an exemption from the bill's restrictions for victims of Hurricane Katrina -- and even voted against the aid package designed to help them recover from the disaster.

Number one is one of our FLIB neighbors, Denny Hastert, in part because of the way he abused his earmarking authority to line his pockets. Which raises a question for some of my regular commenters here who enjoy smearing Harry Reid for such innocuous things as forming an LLC with a friend. Media Matters documented yesterday the way the media seems to have covered up for Hastert and his deal, though he clearly violated ethical guidelines (if not the law) to a far greater extent than Harry Reid ever did. New Rule: You want to criticize Reid? First call out the bigger sinner in your own party.

Two more links: Read the Rolling Stone cover story on this Congress and what makes it so bad, and then go show Bryan Kennedy, Sensenbrenner's opponent, some love.

Doyle breaks 50% in a poll

Via the UW Dems, I see that the last pre-election poll from WPR/St. Norbert College is out, and Jim Doyle looks good in the head-to-head:

The poll was conducted by Wisconsin Public Radio and the St. Norbert College Survey Center and showed that 51% of respondents said they would likely vote for Doyle, compared with 38% who favored Green. Green Party candidate Nelson Eisman was the choice of 1% of respondents, 4% favored another candidate and the rest weren't sure.

The telephone poll surveyed 400 likely Wisconsin voters from Oct. 9 to 16 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points. [. . .] The random sample also included more Democrats than Republicans, [poll director Wendy] Scattergood said.

The possible oversampling of Dems slightly worries me. However, I haven't seen any polling on self-identification in the state lately; the results of the primary in September showed more Dem turnout, and the national trend of late is for more people to self-identify as Democrats. They may just be accounting for those factors. And I found this explanation compelling:

Scattergood said that in the St. Norbert survey, participants have their phone numbers randomly drawn by computer, and they are asked if they are likely to vote in the election. If not, the interview is ended.

She said the latest poll came out with a slightly higher percentage of Democrats in the sample, which could have some effect on the results but might show some Republicans weren't as definite about voting when they were contacted.

"Maybe they're a little bit disaffected and more likely to be staying home," she said. "If that's the case when we're contacting people and saying how likely are you to vote, they may be saying they're less likely." But that won't be known until Election Day, she said.

Moreover, this news reinforces what I've been saying all along: Mark Green just isn't pushing Jim Doyle below the same approximate level he's been at for more than a year. While this is the first time I've seen Doyle over 50% in a head-to-head, there's no question that the results match what we've basically been seeing in the race. (Also, as of this morning, pollster.com hadn't included this poll, so I expect to see the five-poll average inching back up for Doyle.)

Other results from the poll (here's the memo): Kathy Falk is up on JB Van Hollen, 44-38. The anti-gay-marriage-and-civil-unions-and-any-other-substantially-similar-legal-arrangement amendment is passing 51-44 (c'mon, people!). And, perhaps most surprising, the death penalty advisory referendum is up just 50-45; I've been dreading that it would pass easily, but that's really quite encouraging.

No doubt there will be more polls before the important one on November 7. Until then, you can still help Doyle and Falk and the other deserving candidates through their own sites (see the sidebar) or through my ActBlue page.

Spice Boys: Right on Schedule

As I predicted last week, Spivak and Bice continue their quest to dirty up the campaign of Bryan Kennedy. This morning, they break--well, no, I did that--pimp the news that Bryan pays his babysitter.

Perhaps I should let Bryan respond himself; he wrote to Journal Sentinel columnist Mike Nichols yesterday after Nichols repeated the Spice Boys' earlier smear attempts regarding the stipend Bryan's been paying himself, and Nichols put it on the web for us:

As I see it, our representative democracy has 3 options:

1. Middle-class people don't run. We continue with the same oligarchy that we have traditionally had because middle class people don't have family fortunes to fund unpaid leaves of absence to campaign full-time. (We can see what government of, by and for the rich has given us).

2. I continue to work at my state teaching post and state taxpayers support my family and me while I run for office. After all, that is what Jim Sensenbrenner has done. With the exception of his first campaign when his mother supported him from his vast family fortune while he campaigned full-time, every subsequent election has seen Jim Sensenbrenner draw a state or federal paycheck while he campaigns full-time.

3. I draw a salary that is less than my university salary (basically enough to make the mortgage, car pymt, student loan pymt, utilities and essentials) from money that has been donated by people who want to see me win.

It seems to me that no middle-class voices in politics does not serve us well as a people. Given the choice between being supported by state tax dollars or from voluntary contributions, most taxpayers would choose the campaign salary.

Respectfully,

Bryan Kennedy

The Truth Hurts

A couple of months ago, the Jim Doyle campaign started running an ad ("Stands," link opens in Flash video) claiming Mark Green votes with President Bush 92% of the time. Yesterday's paper ran a story saying that wasn't true; Green's average was closer to 90% and the study Doyle used was actually about how often Green voted with the majority of his Republican Party colleagues--a slightly different animal.

But the page-one headline, and accompanying story, was indeed about Green's support for Bush 90% of the time. In fact, the graphic that went with the story showed that Green was the most reliable Bush supporter from Wisconsin's delegation, voting with Bush more often than his peers four out of the last five years--and above the Republican average for those same four out of five years.

This seems to have touched a nerve, starting with someone whom I will not name on a blog I will not link to. He wrote,

Doyle is a lap dog to WEAC and the Indian Casinos, but the MJS cant find time to talk about that can they? Its times like these that remind me why the alternative media such as blogs sprung up in the first place.

So you people over at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel when are we going to see the Headline

"Doyle votes with WEAC and the Indian Casinos 100% of the time"?

The kicker, of course, is that Doyle doesn't support the WEAC or casino line 100% of the time. As a WEAC member, I can think of a number of Doyle decisions that I personally and my union both disagreed with--notably his 2003-2005 budget and the "compromise" last spring on expanding the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program's vouchers. (Doyle, as I documented at the time, had been agitating for a similar compromise for some time.) Do I (and WEAC) still support Doyle? You bet, given what Mark Green has promised to do to public education in this state.

But it's odd how much the headline--"Green backs Bush on 90% of votes"--has raised the hackles. Why would Republicans be ashamed to have it known that Green supports Bush so much? Why is the response to a front-page headline that states a fact--one that, normally, a Republican Congressman might be proud of--so visceral and angry? (Fred calls the WEAC/ casino argument "brilliant," for example.)

I think the problem is that the truth hurts. Given the fallout from the Mark Foley scandal, Bush may no longer be the least popular Republican in the country, but the chart on the right shows how decidedly unpopular he is. In Wisconsin, Bush had (last month) a 39% approval rating to a 59% disapproval rating. [UPDATE: The October numbers are just out, and they put Bush at 36-62!]

In the end, I'd welcome the kind of comparison Fred calls brilliant. If this election were held in a vacuum, and you asked voters to support either the man endorsed by Wisconsin's teachers or the man endorsed by President Bush, Doyle would win in a landslide. Wisconsin's teachers have a mind-blowing 77% approval rating.

So I say, bring it. Let's see that headline in the paper. Mark Green, make your commercials about how Doyle supports teachers and our public schools. Please.

[Blank] Jobs

You can fill in the blank.

A couple things struck me reading this morning's relatively in-depth article on the economic development platforms of Governor Jim Doyle and Mark Green. One, if Green is elected, he had better hope that Democrats take back the legislature, because his ideas won't get past those Republicans:

Green's goal would be to reduce the number of economic development programs to 10 or fewer. Doyle's most recent budget proposal, for 2005-'07, included a plan to restructure the Wisconsin Development Fund, which would have eliminated several inactive and outdated programs. The Legislature did not include that restructuring plan in the final budget bill. [. . .]

A current state tax credit for "angel investors," who provide funds for start-up companies, would be expanded from $6.5 million annually to $20 million, Green said. It was Doyle who started tax credits for angel investors as part of his "Grow Wisconsin" agenda. Doyle wanted to offer $10 million in credits annually. The Republican-controlled Legislature scaled it back to $6.5 million a year.

Also, Doyle's 2005-'07 budget expanded a program that provides tax credits to businesses expanding or locating in areas known as "enterprise development zones." The $243 million program was created in 1995, and $123 million in credits had been used by 2005. But the remaining $120 million in credits couldn't be used in recent years because of a limit on the number of development zones in Wisconsin. Doyle used his veto power to lift that cap. [. . .]

Green said states can pay too much to attract new jobs. But, he said, such incentives packages can be good investments based on the number of family-supporting jobs they help attract. [. . .] Doyle last year proposed $2.5 million in annual state grants for businesses moving to Wisconsin's border counties from other states. The Legislature did not approve that program.

Got it? Green wants to recycle a whole slew of Doyle's old ideas, ideas that in many cases were shot down by the very people now out campaigning for Green.

But what struck me even more in reading this is the extent to which the governor is expected to meddle in the process of development--an expectation that can only lead to a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't situation for anyone in that office. We already know, for example, that a tremendous double-standard exists for Gov. Doyle: If, for example, Doyle had leaned on the DNR about that whole Menard's flap, he would have been tagged as bending the rules for big campaign donors. Instead, he stayed out of it, Menard's built elsewhere (which probably had little to do with DNR anyway), and Doyle got tagged for not being aggressive enough in pursuing them.

Green, in this morning's article, trots out Honda. As we have discussed before, Honda was not coming to Wisconsin, no matter what we might have said or done. It wouldn't have made a lick of sense, and besides, the paper today tells us what it might have cost us:

For Honda, Indiana is providing $141.5 million in state and local incentives - or $70,750 for each job created. That amount includes money for future roads and other public improvements to accommodate additional commercial and residential growth tied to the Honda plant.

That's got to be more than the annual salary of those workers. Given how far away from scoring the plant Wisconsin actually was, can you imagine how much more it might have cost us? Is it, at those kind of numbers, worth it?

And here's the damned-either-way part: Had Doyle promised, say, $100,000 per worker in your tax money to subsidze the Honda plant, would he--could he--have gotten away with it? And what if there were campaign donations involved?

There are a whole lot of people who make good money complaining that neither political party is worth anything. Even the paper, in another of its annoying "kids, play nice" editorials, bemoans the lack of a focus on issues in this campaign. (They need a bit of a heal thyself moment.) But here we have a solid study on the issues, with seemingly no recognition that the whole concept--governors personally inserting themselves into the commerce of the state--invites at the very least the appearance of corruption, and at worst, a culture of actual corruption and putting business interests above those of the people, the environment, and the well being of the state.

And the irony is, that after all the negative press Mark Green has been able to stir up about Jim Doyle, Green's own plan--the part he hasn't stolen from Doyle--puts him even deeper into the mess:

Green would replace the Department of Commerce, the state's main agency overseeing economic development efforts, with a new public-private agency, called the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. That agency would be led by a non-partisan board, chaired by Green, made up of industry, labor and University of Wisconsin System leaders.

The new agency would be more flexible than the Commerce Department and able to respond more quickly to changing business conditions, Green said. Having the governor lead the agency would create a more visible contact for businesses seeking economic development help, he said.

Not that I want Green to win, but if he does, I can't wait for the first time this new agency meets, Green firmly at the helm, and a business with $10k or $20k or $50k of donations to Green sitting across from him, asking for handouts. Middleman eliminated, Green would do a true job on the state of Wisconsin.

Friday Random Ten

The Friday the 13th Edition
Boo!

1. "Lovers in a Dangerous Time" Bruce Cockburn from Anything Anytime Anywhere
2. "Revenge" Whiskeytown from Faithless Street
3. "Girl" Rhett Miller from This Bird Has Flown
4. "Bigger Than My Body" John Mayer from Heavier Things
5. "Promise Me" Lucy Kaplansky from Ten Year Night
6. "Tea Tale" Sons of the Never Wrong from Nuthatch Suite
7. "The Ballad of Me and Jones" Chuck Brodsky from Tulips for Lunch
8. "That's My Dad" JohnSmith from To the Four Directions
9. "The Love Letter" Carrie Newcomer from The Bird or the Wing
10. "Don't Fix My Faucet" Kate McDonell from Next

WI-05: F. Jim's running scared, with lapdog help

I don't remember when the last time F. Jim Sensenbrenner faced a credible opponent. He may not, either, for that matter. But consider the facts:

• Bryan Kennedy has raised more money than any previous opponent (you can still add to that).
  
• A recent poll (why was there no good press about this?) shows that
  • Half (49%) of all WI-05 voters feel things in the country are off on the wrong track.
    
  • Democrats have gained 13% in self identified partisanship since 2004, with Republicans holding a much smaller 45% to 35% advantage than they held two years ago.
    
  • Only half of the district rates Sensenbrenner positively by half (49%) of all voters, which is a twelve point drop in his personal favorability ratings since 2004.
    
  • Sensenbrenner’s negative job performance rating is 46% negative.
    
  • In informed trial heats, Kennedy pulls within striking distance (Kennedy 41%, Sensenbrenner 51%) and closes the gap even further to 41% to 49% in a re-test of the trial heat after the voters hear a series of messages against Sensenbrenner.
    
  • Forty percent of Sensenbrenner’s support is weak and vulnerable.
• Sensenbrenner has massively increased the time he's spent in the district, including agreeing to debate his opponent(s) for the first time in my memory, at least.
  
• The power-licking Spivak and Bice, of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, have been pursuing Kennedy not for his policy positions--which by far represent those of the general public better than F. Jim's--but rather because Bryan is not a millionaire, like some Congressmen I could name, and actually put his family into debt in 2004 doing what he's doing now.

First it was the fact that Bryan couldn't afford to feed his children if he didn't pay himself a salary. Now comes a story to me from a reliable source that after last night's candidate forum, the Spice Boys--who skipped the debate itself--grilled Kennedy about why his campaign would be paying for child care.

Well, um, because it's legal, and necessary. When Kennedy and his wife were both working--Bryan's on leave from his professorship at UWM to, you know, run for Congress--they were able to arrange their schedules to minimize child care needs. Now, with Kennedy's irregular (and 22-hour-a-day or so) campaign schedule, it's just not possible.

And part of what put the Kennedys in debt last time around was making sure someone responsible watched the kids. Maybe people whose fortunes were made in tampons don't need help running for Congress, but we mere mortals do.

Again, this is all legal--and a necessary recourse for candidates of modest means. Kennedy's campaign has, from what I understand, checked repeatedly with the FEC for guidance on this, and they've given the okay.

And yet, for the Spice Boys, this is the stuff of juicy gossip columns. This is what makes headlines. This is what is worth writing up, not any of the things worth really talking about. Not Sensenbrenner's lobbyist-paid travel habits, meddling ex parte in federal criminal cases, foul treatment of committee witnesses and constituents.

How scared must Sensenbrenner, and the lapdogs willing to sniff every low place for a story, be about Kennedy's chances November 7, that they've hit the sleaze sauce so hard?

Rick Esenberg and the ADF

A follow-up to something I mentioned yesterday: Rick Esenberg has clarified his relationship to the Alliance Defense Fund:

First, I do not work for ADF and I will not take upon myself the burden of agreeing with every position taken by every client they represent if for no other reason that I am not aware of them. What I do with ADF is consider referrals from them of pro bono work. I was asked to blog on a law blog they have created. This does not mean that I become involved in everything they do or that they consult with me on anything they do. I think ADF is a fine organization that provides excellent legal representation to religious conservatives (on lots of issues that have nothing to do with gays and lesbians), but Rick is not ADF and ADF is not Rick.

Thanks to Rick for explaining his role; as I noted, given the paucity of appearances of his name on ADF's website, it seemed unlikely that the connection was strong.

However, Rick goes on in that post to say this, about the ADF and the possible consequences of the language in the second sentence of the anti-gay-marriage-and-civil-unions-and-any-other-substantially-similar-legal-arrangement amendment:

As to what position ADF will take on domestic partner benefits, I don't know. I think the question is too imprecise to even hazard a guess. I do know that they have taken the position that reciprocal benefit schemes are OK. What they are hinky about (and, I think, rightly so) is in creating statuses that are "marriage lite." They don't mind people sharing benefits (as long as its not part of a status like marriage) or entering into agreements under which they may assume certain obligations toward another.

My opinion, after thinking a lot since I first blogged about it in March, is that the amendment would not prohibit an employer from saying that you can designate another person to share your health insurance. I can't tell you whether people employed by ADF would agree. They are smart guys and girls and form their own opinions.

That completely doesn't square with reality; in the post I linked to yesterday, Joshua Freker documents that time after time the ADF has gone after partner benefits, both in Wisconsin and around the country. Neither Josh nor Rick distinguishes that these challenges seem to be of public employees' benefits, not the private sector; but as a public employee (Milwaukee Public Schools), I can tell you that I don't want the ADF meddling in what my employer can and can't do, the way they tried to in Madison. And ADF-affiliated attorneys have challenged more than just bennies, up to and including domestic violence protections.

These are not abstract "Oh, gee, I don't know what would happen" sort of questions. Rick Esenberg, too, is a smart man and a smart enough attorney to know precedent when he sees it. He's waffling when he says he doesn't know what ADF might do. And his defense--that the ACLU might sue demanding recognition of same-sex marriage without the amendment--is not enough to cover that waffling.

The New Harry Reid Smear

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid made a profit from a land sale--and not even land that he used his leadership position to influence the value of, just regular old land.

Reid informed the Senate Ethics Committee about it, and didn't hide anything in his paperwork filed with the state of Nevada. His only possible violation of anything was that he didn't distinguish for the Ethics Committee that for the last half of his ownership of the land, he held it in a limited liability corproation (LLC) instead of as an individual.

The "story" was broken by the same Associated Press reporter who blew the boxing credentials story and lied about a Reid-Abramoff connection. There's also no fire in this new story--barely any smoke.

And yet our local righties have jumped on the story, demanding that we Democrats--who have taken stands against Congressional leaders covering up for sex predators in their ranks--call for Reid's resignation. Owen doesn't explicitly, but implies that it was Reid's status that earned him such profit. But Fraley calls on Dems to demand the resignation, as does Fred. The Game goes further, apparently applying that law degree he earned overnight to say, "Here is a story of actual corruption, actual breaking the law." What law? The law that public servants can't legitimately make a profit? I thought the Republican party was all about profit.

It's also, apparently, all about smears.

Don Holt Writes a Letter

October 7, 2006

Sheriff David A. Clarke
Re: Debate Challenge

Dear Sheriff Clarke:

Because the sheriff’s election is very important, the citizens of Milwaukee County deserve the courtesy of hearing, first hand, the fundamental differences and values that separate us. Don’t you agree? For this reason I challenge you to debate the issues.

The public has the right to know the status of some very serious issues.

The facts are:

• You do not believe strongly in traffic enforcement, but rather voluntary compliance and have cut the patrol strength during the largest highway reconstruction project in Wisconsin’s history. Also, the freeway revenue is down.
  
  
• Your booking process has required that detainees often spend over 30 hours waiting to be processed.
  
  
• You discontinued park patrols and, without respect for input from the Milwaukee and suburban chiefs of police, you TOLD them they “will patrol the parks”.
  
  
• Although you are a member of Milwaukee County Law Enforcement Executives Association (MCLEEA) you have not met with them in nearly over a year. The exchange of information by this group of professionals is key to county-wide law enforcement planning.
  
  
• You proclaim to be “hard on crime” yet cannot site any example were you have made improvements in the last 4 years. In fact during the 4th Street Forum on 10-05-06 you admitted that we are worse off now than 4 years ago – “backsliding” – your own word!
  
  
• You have cut DARE and TABS. During a debate moderated by Eric Von on WMCS you justified pulling out of the TABS program by citing some obscure study out of Washington D.C saying the TABS program was ineffective. It seems it was not the program that was ineffective but rather the management of the program as Racine’s TABS program reduced the truancy rate in their schools from 21.7% down to 9%
  
  
• Many of your disciplinary actions and promotional practices have been challenged and overturned. You have retaliated against your employees for exercising their right to free speech. This has markedly affected morale.
  
  
• You have touted the fact that you have had budget surpluses over the past several years. It appears that you are inflating your budget in order to show a return at the end of the year for political purposes. It is also noted that from 2004 to the current proposed 2007 budget there is a loss of total revenues of over FIVE MILLION DOLLARS. The citizens of Milwaukee County need to know why.
  
  
• You have pretended to be tough on crime while pulling your personnel out of all interagency drug and crime fighting initiatives.

AND perhaps the greatest difference between us is ethical.

• You have illegally used department funds to put your name on billboards during your last campaign.
  
  
• You are illegally using your county owned vehicle, purchased with asset forfeiture funds, for personal and political purposes. (A complaint is pending before the Milwaukee County Ethics Board on this issue).
  
  
• You have a double standard. You violate your own policies by wearing your uniform and firearm while serving alcoholic beverages.
  
  
• You wore your weapon into an area of the jail where this is prohibited. You recently escorted a dangerous prisoner into the jail wearing your sidearm. This transgression was especially serious due to the past history of the prisoner – truly a foolish action.

I challenge you, David Clarke, to a live debate on radio and on T.V. The media times and dates are to be mutually agreed to.

Respectfully,
Don Holt
holt-dr@sbcglobal.net
cc: Milwaukee Media

Midweek Miscellany

• I have parent-teacher conferences tonight, so I won't make it to Drinking Liberally. But don't let that stop you!
  
  
• WisPolitics is having a contest!
  
  
• Some light reading on the Menard's flap: Seth and Cory tell us that just knowing Menard's is building in Iowa and Ohio doesn't tell you the whole story.
  
  
• If indeed Democrats do take control of the House of Representatives after this November's elections, according to Chris Bowers, it will be the first time since 1955 that the South has not controlled the House:

  The gains Democrats are making in this election are not the result of becoming more moderate. The gains Democrats are making in this election are not the result of doing a better job of talking to "values voters." The gains Democrats are making in this election are not coming from rebuking the party's liberal wing. The gains Democrats are making in this election are not coming from moving to the right on national security, immigration, or taxes. The gains Democrats are making in this election are not the result of recapturing "the Bubba vote." It is easy to tell that the Democratic gains in this election are not the result of any of those things, because Democrats have not done any of those things. We have, instead, built significantly improved political infrastructure, moved to the left, and rallied a broad, people-powered coalition against Republican extremism. [. . .] This will be the first post-Dixiecrat, post-Blue Dog, post-DLC, post-triangulation, post-moderation victory for Democrats in a long, long time.

  
  
• Some more reading on North Korea: Josh Marshall provides a timeline and remids of us the salient fact: This is not Bill Clinton's fault:

  So Clinton strikes a deal to keep plutonium out of the North Koreans' hands. The deal keeps the plutonium out of reach for the last six years of Clinton's term and the first two of Bush's. Bush pulls out of the deal. Four years later a plutonium bomb explodes.

  Mixter asks, "Who was president in 2002?" I ask, at what point--2009? 2010?--does stuff start being the fault of the guy under whose watch this happened?
  
  
• Among the scariest parts of the "Detainee Trials" bill passed a couple weeks back (and then buried under the Foleylanche) is the notion that, at his discretion, the president can declare anyone, even citizens of the United States, "ublawful combatants." You can be arrested for something as innocuous as donating to a non-profit, thrown in jail, and tortured. If it happened to Jose Padilla, it could happen to you:

  He stayed in a black hole, kept by his own government, for the next three-and-a-half-years with no charges of any kind ever asserted against him and with the administration insisting on the right to detain him (and any other American citizen) indefinitely--all based solely on the secret, unchallengeable say-so of the President.

  Even if you like George W. Bush, consider what President Hillary would do with that kind of power, the decide if you want that in the unsupervised and unchallengeable hands of one person.
  
  
• A note about Blogads: I'm generally happy to take anoyone's money, of any stripe, if you want to support what I do or promote yourself. However, I did reject an ad this week--the first time I've done so--for JB Van Hollen. The ad was "Dems for JB," and I felt that anyone seeing the ad might mistake me as a Dem for JB. I am not; I support Kathleen Falk and, even though my influence is undoubtedly very small in the matter, will not do anything to give the impression that I think we should elect Van Hollen. I'm sure his money spends just like anyone else's, but I had to say no.
  
  
• Yesterday, I wrote about how abusive and hostile the other side of the Cheddarsphere can be (my great sin, to be clear, was linking to someone else; that alone was enough to prompt a profane and childish explosion). One of the good guys, to me, has always been Rick Esenberg, who I don't think has a hostile or profane bone in his body. However, Fair Wisconsin's Joshua Freker Ferrets out something about Rick:

  The picture becomes clearer when we note that Esenberg has begun working with the Alliance Defense Fund, which has been at the forefront in pushing bans across the country. He contributes to their blog, Constitutionally Correct. [. . .] Esenberg works with an organization passionately opposed to providing gay families with any measure of fair treatment. So when he says that the Wisconsin ban wouldn't touch gay families' health care--when he offers an interpretation counter to the one put forth by ADF attorneys across the country--count me as deeply skeptical.
  
  If our ban passes, is Esenberg saying that ADF won't sue here? Or that he won't take part in such a suit? Somehow, I doubt it.

  Now, to be fair to Rick the connections I found Googling ADF's website for Rick's name are a little slim, but he is indeed attached to ADF in some ways. I think it is incumbent upon Rick to explain why ADF's history of pursuing cases based on the kind of weasel language our proposed amendment contains shouldn't make us wary of a "yes" vote. (Reminder: Vote no.)

To my readers: an apology, and a clarification

In my post last week about the proposal to arm teachers, I linked to a number of bloggers on the other side of the ideological divide who disagreed with me, with my premise that guns for teachers was indeed the Stupidest Idea Ever. I've turned off one of those links--redirected it to this post, in fact--because now, if you click through, you are greeted to a profanity-laden "update" insulting and demeaning you. (For a "bleeped" version of what it says now, check the end of this post at Playground Politics.)

So, gentle readers, if you clicked through and were greeted by that, I apologize. Clearly, that blogger's issues manifest themselves in hostile and really kind of scary diatribes (this is not our first run-in), and I'm sorry you had to see that.

I would also like to clarify: I never, ever link to people I disagree with in order to implicitly (or explicitly) direct you, gentle readers, to act badly towards them--abusive emails, nasty comments, etc.--since that is one behavior to which I will not stoop. I have no evidence that any of you have done such a thing; in any case, please don't provoke that blogger any further.

But you needn't worry now; I will not link to that particular blogger again.

A Quiz: Mark Green and Copyright Law

I promised you a quiz yesterday, remember? But today's quiz is not, sadly, on yesterday's assigned readings. Instead, it comes to us by way of the improbably named Snooglepoop, which asks, "Mark Green, felon?"

Go read the case Snooglepoop makes, and then answer the question (Mark Green, felon?). This is an essay question, but not timed. You will be graded on originality and--sorry, Chris--grammar and punctuation. Submit your answers in the comments below. And no cheating!

(Fred, you will lose points for talking photoshop.)

Monday Reading Assignments

There may be a quiz.

• Dave Diamond gives us a statistics lesson, complete with pretty pictures.
  
  
• The Brawler has a lesson on common sense; it seems that the last person you want to call a "bloodthirsty" lawyer is . . . a lawyer.
  
  
• The Brawler also has a lesson in irony. It's hard to say what my favorite part is: That the person in question champions as meritorious blogs that are so patently offensive I can't stand to read them anymore, or that one blog she names as meritorious that is not on her blogroll is mine. Oh, or that she links to Little Green Footballs. That's good irony, too.
  
  
• I'm hoping to do a longer piece on "All Children Matter" (working title: "I Can Thing of At Least Three Things Wrong With That Name"), but Xoff uses them in today's journalism lesson.
  
  
• Josh Marshall is teaching history today, in advance of claims that Bill Clinton detonated the nuke in North Korea, or something.
  
  
• There's also good history lessons available from Media Matters, who are tracking what the president calls "revisionist history" about the Mark Foley scandal. Glenn Greenwald and Georgia10 have more.
  
  
• Kevin Drum has a basic lesson in economics for us: Buy Low, Sell High At A Rate Inflated By Your Meddling As Speaker Of The House.
  
  
• And speaking of money, Billmon teaches us, in the wake of the Foley scandal, of the number one rule in politics and the mafia: Always the dollars.
  
  
• A couple of lessons about F. Jim Sensenbrenner: One, he doesn't invest the way he preaches; Two, his beloved "fence" (the "Torilla Curtain," as it's being called) is probably nothing more than a cheap stunt.
  
  
• Gretchen at Milwaukee Rising has story time about Tom Reynolds (the nutty Wisconsin one, not the one in New York who helped protect Mark Foley). She tells us about Reynolds's big money from the Wal*Mart heirs. But she leaves us hanging on the ending--all the support Reynolds gives back in return by voting for more private school vouchers (.pdf). It's what Sam would have wanted, I'm sure.

McIlheran Watch: Is it OCD?

Or does Julaine Appling have compromising pictures?

There must be something to Patrick McIlheran's need to devote three Sunday columns in a row to the anti-gay-marriage-and-civil-unions-and-any-other-substantially-similar-legal-arrangement amendment. (Reminder: please vote no.)

Today's column is full of ridiculousness, but includes a paragraph or three on something I actually know something about, and I can tell you he's full of it. He writes,

We even have an example of gay marriage. Journalist Stanley Kurtz has written extensively on the Netherlands, blessed as recently as the mid-1990s with a low rate of out-of-wedlock childbearing. Then came a successful campaign for gay marriage. Unmarried childbearing, already rising a bit, did a hockey-stick bend upward. For eight years, it's outpaced the rest of western Europe.

This is mainly among opposite-sex couples, which shows how including gay couples changes the meaning for everyone. The change repurposed marriage away from bonding mothers, fathers and children, making it instead about a couple's love.

In which case, says Kurtz, why bother with the confining hassle of marrying? The law no longer prefers it. In fact, he says, more unmarried Dutch now say they're having children "as a test of their couplehood" - yet fewer ever marry. This inverts the purpose of marriage, making children an instrument to serve adults' emotional satisfactions.

Stanley Kurtz is a favorite among anti-gay-marriage people, as I learned during my very first "battle" as Iron Blogger Democrat (start at the bottom and read up), a battle I won handily on the subject of constitutionally prohibiting gay marriage. As it turns out, Kurtz's research on Scandanavian gay marriage--assuming he's not putting his partisan thumb on the scale--simply does not project at all onto the US. Here's one little bit that I wrote then:

His "study" of Scandinavian marriage was published in The Weekly Standard, not a peer-reviewed journal. He held anti-gay prejudices, based not in "science" but his own standards of morality (really, read some of his earlier writings), before he started. And there is no easy way to map the Scandinavian results onto this country, as the study shows that the easy availability of hetero- and homosexual civil unions undercut marriage; we do not have a history here of civil unions!

Indeed, I found opinion pieces of Kurtz's going back years before his "study" of Scandanavian gay marriage was undertaken. And I also found a piece from M.V. Lee Badgett at Slate about exactly this issue. Economist Badgett eviscerates the primary point McIlheran borrows from journalist Kurtz for his column. Here's just a taste:

The main evidence Kurtz points to is the increase in cohabitation rates among unmarried heterosexual couples and the increase in births to unmarried mothers. Roughly half of all children in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark are now born to unmarried parents. In Denmark, the number of cohabiting couples with children rose by 25 percent in the 1990s. From these statistics Kurtz concludes that " … married parenthood has become a minority phenomenon," and—surprise—he blames gay marriage.

But Kurtz's interpretation of the statistics is incorrect. Parenthood within marriage is still the norm—most cohabitating couples marry after they start having children. In Sweden, for instance, 70 percent of cohabiters wed after their first child is born. Indeed, in Scandinavia the majority of families with children are headed by married parents. In Denmark and Norway, roughly four out of five couples with children were married in 2003. In the Netherlands, a bit south of Scandinavia, 90 percent of heterosexual couples with kids are married. [. . .]

No matter how you slice the demographic data, rates of nonmarital births and cohabitation do not increase as a result of the passage of laws that give same-sex partners the right to registered partnership. To put it simply: Giving gay couples rights does not inexplicably cause heterosexuals to flee marriage, as Kurtz would have us believe. Looking at the long-term statistical trends, it seems clear that the changes in heterosexuals' marriage and parenting decisions would have occurred anyway, even in the absence of gay marriage.

Read, as they say, the whole thing; you can also read Badgett's discussion paper (.pdf) on the subject, which even makes his points in convenient chart form.

The title of McIlheran's column today is "The amendment's cruel? Alternatives are crueler." This implies that allowing gay marriage (which defeating the amendment itself would not do) would be "cruel." To support that, he turns to a partisan who can't even read demographic tables right. Therefore we must, McIlheran says, write discrimination into the constitution.

Seems to me, if we're going to go mucking up the constitution of this state, we need something stronger than that.

McIlheran Watch: Lies and the Lying Liars Edition

Patrick McIlheran, my true "MSM" nemesis, has picked up Jessica McBride's recent assertion that I control the media spin on the story or whatever. He blogged yesterday:

Spivak and Bice wondered the other day how long until the Democrats start demanding Mark Green return any money they got passed along by disgraced and resigned Rep. Mark Foley’s campaign.

Doubtless, the only bottleneck is studio time to make the ad. Compunctions clearly form no bar to the Doyle campaign, which still shows no shame over usurping the state Elections Board.

And, as Jessica McBride points out, the Dems’ peanut gallery is already singing along, with one Milwaukee blogger already making the absurd contention that John Gard, not yet in Congress, is somehow part of a coverup.

Let's start with some absudities here: By the time (6:00 pm Tuesday) the Spice Boys "wondered" about when Dems would demand the return of the Foley money, Green had already announced (Monday evening) that he would donate the $1000 from Foley's PAC in 1998 to charity, and, as that AP story notes, the state Democratic party had already called on Green to return it. The Spice boys seem a little slow on the uptake, there. There's just no excuse for McIlheran, writing two days after the Spice Boys, for not knowing that Green figured the cash was still toxic eight years later and gave it up. (Yesterday, but after McIlheran's post, Paul Ryan, the only other Wisconsin Republican who got Foley money, gave his away, too, though I don't know that anyone actually called for it.)

Then there's the part of McIlheran's post that's about me--the "one Milwaukee blogger" contending that Gard "is somehow part of a cover-up." That's not what I said; that's not even what McBride said I said. She wrote,

What was Gard's "offense?" He took money from Republicans being accused of "protecting" Mark Foley. Gard's not even in Congress yet! In other words, it's all below the belt.

She thinks I wasn't being fair when I said "Gard needs to explain how and why he thinks it's a good idea to keep $27,000 in PAC money from men who knowingly participated in the cover-up of crimes and inappropriate behavior." I can see her point, but as I wrote yesterday, that's a legitimate question to ask.

To be fair, what McBride links to is not actually the post here on my blog, but the re-posting of it I did at the World's Biggest Blog, Daily Kos, which you can read here. But I wrote the exact same sentence about Gard there.

So in three paragraphs, McIlheran blows it several ways, without even touching the unfounded spin about Doyle's "usurping" the SEB. P-Mac tries a dig at Dems for probably wanting to demand that Green give back money Green had already unloaded; he misrepresents what Jessica McBride wrote about me; and, in the process, misrepresents what I actually said.

But that was not, in my eyes, McIlheran's biggest sin in that post of his. No, that came at the end, when he wrote,

As Dean Barnett points out, this is oddly like the Wellstone funeral affair: Democrats letting their emotions carry them too far.

I've gotten riled up about this before, in part because I really, really liked Paul Wellstone, and in part because the conservative lies and myths about the Wellstone memorial service are among the basest and most disturbingly false accusations that they peddle--and they are also pervasive. But they are lies, and the Barnett piece McIlheran links to repeats them all:

Democratic partisans opted to use his metaphorical coffin as a campaign prop while trying to rally the faithful. [. . .] But what made the Wellstone Memorial noteworthy was its raw ugliness. Republican dignitaries who attended the event to show their respect for Wellstone were booed when their images were shown on the Jumbotron. Many fevered-swamp type Democrats saw nothing wrong with this. The country recoiled from the spectacle, utterly repulsed and shocked.

I wrote about these lies two summers ago after the death of Ronald Reagan, anticipating, correctly, that Republicans would compare and contrast the Reagan memorial service with their imagined scenes of partisan rallying at the Wellstone memorial. As I wrote then,

There were eight speakers in all, besides George Latimer, the former mayor of St. Paul who acted as MC. Iowa's Tom Harkin was the only elected official to speak; the rest were friends and family of the victims. One of them, whom Wellstone described as "there is no one person outside of my family that I admire and love so much" Rick Kahn, ended his eulogy with an impassioned plea to carry on the legacy of Paul Wellstone, and to "win the election for Paul." That was the only political moment. A couple of minutes, tops, out of four hours of remembrance, where things got a little partisan.

But that didn't stop those with an agenda from lying. Immediately after the memorail, Coleman's campaign manager Vin Weber was in front of cameras to denounce the whole thing as "a political event [. . .] a complete, total, absolute sham." And of course Limbaugh was on the air the next day blubbering about it. And the TV pundits, too. Everyone seemed to take that one small slice at the end of Kahn's speech and extrapolate to believe that moment was representative of the whole event. And boy were they indignant.

Their claims ranged from Trent Lott getting booed by the whole audience (there was a smattering of boos, but he smiled and waved) to the whole event's being scripted, including telling the audience when to applaud and jeer (evidenced by the words on the Jumbotron--you know, the closed captioning that was there for the deaf). They claimed Republicans who wanted to speak were shouted down by the partisan crowd--but the only people on the schedule were the ones delivering the eulogies; there was no open mic. And more.

Al Franken, a partisan, yes, but also a friend of Wellstone and someone who was at the memorial, has since written an account of that service for the Huffington Post, which is worth a read.

McIlheran's sin of lying about the Wellstone memorial is complicated by the fact that he doesn't seem to care that some of us have genuine emotions about the Foley scandal not prompted by partisan glee. As I said earlier this week, I teach high school students, boys and girls of the same age as the pages Foley was emailing and IMing. It is revolting to me, literally nauseating, to believe that anyone could have looked at even the "overly friendly" emails that surfaced first last week and decide that there was nothing wrong or creepy or worth investigating about them. For me, this isn't (just) about getting the Republicans; this is about the instinct I have cultivated my entire professional career to protect these children.

Patrick McIlheran is a parent. If he cannot find the same sense of moral outrage within himself . . . Well, I don't want to even think about it.

Friday Random Ten

The is it October already? Edition*

1. "Touch Me Fall" Indigo Girls from Swamp Ophelia
2. "Falling Down the Mountainside" David Gray from Lost Songs
3. "When Jimmy Falls in Love" Vance Gilbert from Edgewise
4. "Fall on Me" R.E.M. from Eponymous
5. "World's not Falling Apart" Dar Williams from The Beauty of the Rain
6. "Snow Don't Fall" John Gorka from Writing in the Margins
7. "Falling" Peter Mulvey from Kitchen Radio
8. "Falling" Sons of the Never Wrong from 3 Good Reasons
9. "Fall Stories" Girlyman from Remember Who I Am
10. "Fall" Peter Mayer from Million Year Mind

* I've been told I should explain the different methodology: I created a playlist of songs with the word "fall" in them, and these are the first ten (of about 40) that came up.

Guns for teachers is quite possibly the Stupidest Idea Ever

The recent, depressing, regretable--and remarkably anomalous--rash of school violence has led to what has to be the most hare-brained and addle-pated idea since Uncle Herb decided to let Homer design a car. (I know that was on a TV show. But I can't even think of an example in real life that even comes close.)

That idea--sprung like a sadly defective Athena from the shiny forehead of Representative Frank Lasee (R-Bellevue) (the town, not the mental hospital)--is to arm teachers and other school personnel.

I wonder if Lasee asked a single teacher about the idea, because just about every teacher I know would have told Lasee where he could stick his guns (hint: not the holster).

The Cheddarsphere's gun fetishists have all taken firm hold of the proposal and are pumping away. In typical run-on fashion, Chris pictures it in his mind, saying "Hell I am not saying you have to meet them in a hall way like Gary Cooper in High Noon it isn’t that hard to shoot someone in that back or even force the gunman to flee." Whew! Our halls don't have to be the Old West! Owen unsurprisingly calls it a good idea. Dad29 befouls the memory of Principal John Klang, who died in last week's Weston School shooting here in Wisconsin.

Notice, none of them are teachers, work in a school, or have as their primary responsibility the safety of hundreds or thousands of kids. They, like Lasee, are happy to impose their own twisted fantasy ideal on those of us who have to live with the consequences of their decisions.

What, then, makes this so stupid? The first reason is simple: In every school shooting of late--and I'm thinking in terms of years, now, not just last week--the perpetrators wanted to die. In fact, some of them, like the teens plotting a Columbine redux in Green Bay, specifically planned for "suicide by cop." The man who executed five girls in Pennsylvania Monday wanted to die. The man who took students hostage in Colorado last week killed himself, too. Owen, admittedly, tries to address the point by saying that armed teachers might hasten that last plank of the plan. But the fact remains: There will be no deterrent effect. In fact--and perhaps I know too many of the wrong kind of teenagers--I worry that it might encourage more suicidal kids to "take people with them," as the Green Bay students planned.

Also, I know the frequency with which things turn up stolen at school. Well, you might say, we'll only give the responsible teachers guns. Horse pucky. Believe me, there are many people who think they're responsible--or are labeled as such by their supervisors--who simply are not. Again, maybe I'm generalizing based on what I know from working so long in such a messed-up district. But even the teachers I think are responsible have things turn up missing--sometimes as small as bus tickets, sometimes as large as stereos or DVD players. Safety aides and administrators regularly have their walkie-talkies or other personal effects stolen during melees. I once had a smooth student swipe my clip-on ID right off my clothes. And if you think the lawsuits are a potential problem now, just wait until the first time a group of kids surprises an armed teacher, knocks him or her down, and steals the gun to do whatever it is they might otherwise have done with just fists.

And, among the best reasons against the proposal is one I heard expressed by my union president Dennis Oulihan on the radio this morning (listen here). The schools, he said, are very often the safest places in our students' lives. School may just be the one place where our kids go regularly where the people around them aren't packing heat, and the kids count on that measure of safety. Since I've been in the district, a number of my students or former students have been murdered outside of school, but not a single student has been killed inside an MPS school. Carrying guns around, besides creating the possibility of a loose gun in the building, sends an implicit message to the students that you are no longer safe here. I don't want any part of that.

Lasee's legislation probably won't go anywhere. There's that pesky federal law against carrying on school grounds, and the fact that, no matter who wins the governor's race next month (reminder: vote Doyle), the proposal may well face a veto. Plus his cousin, Senate President Alan Lasee (ironically, the one who wears the cowboy hat), has basically said "over my dead body."

But dead bodies we may get: Frank Lasee, in the news article, recognizes that his idea is a longshot, but holds out the hope of more school violence, to jumpstart support for the idea ("support could build in the future if school violence continues"). Not my wish, but I guess sometimes we have to make sacrifices, don't we, Frank?

--

Additional reading: Michael J. Mathias and Barry Orton.

This Blog is Not Affiliated with DPW or Any Campaign

I felt the need for the disclaimer. (I am even a little afraid I've let my party dues lapse, though I'm not entirely sure.)

This is because Jessica McBride thinks I write the Dems' press releases, or something, which, of course, drives the media narrative. She's even put it in handy diagram form, for her listeners who can't read between the lines:

Blogs ----> Democratic Party/Doyle campaign press releases ----> MSM stories

There you go, boys and girls. All those nice Republicans who took campaign money from the Republican leadership that protected and promoted a sexual predator (for years, people, not just a few months) wouldn't have to face any awkward questions in the press about it if it weren't for me. Absolutely nothing that they would have to say or comment on at all if I hadn't gone mucking around in publicly accessible websites looking for dirt.

And now, for my next feat of massive influence: Jessica McBride should retire from public life. (Just give that a week to sink in.)

--

Less serious response: What? Bloggers driving the media narrative? Why, conservatives would never do that. (*cough* danrather *cough*)

--

More serious response: I'm going to believe that, after I posted twice on Sunday about Wisconsin Republicans' ties to the Mark Foley scandal, the press releases that showed up in my inbox Monday (like this one) mirroring my posts were more a case of Great Minds Thinking Alike than anything else. It was low-hanging fruit, after all.

But there is a legitimate question for Republican Congressional candidate John Gard, despite what Dennis York thinks (scroll down to Hasselhoff), about whether the ten large from John Boehner, who knew about Foley but didn't call for the kind of investigation we've seen in page scandals of the past, would affect a hypothetical-Congressman Gard's vote for the leadership in January. Does Gard think that Boehner--or Hastert, who dropped $5k to him--is the kind of man who should be leading the Congress he wants to belong to? That is not an unreasonable question at all; and the follow-up--if not, why keep the money?--is also reasonable to ask. Jessica McBride is, in theory, someone who knows journalism and, as such, should know that those questions would have come regardless of my writing on this blog about it.

Gard is welcome to make the case to the press that Dennis York does for him, but it's not wrong to ask, and certainly not unexpected that the Democratic Party of Wisconsin would press the issue.

Yeah, Yeah, Record Dow

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editorial Board and my sworn nemesis Owen have both celebrated the fact that this week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average finally got back to where it was more than six-and-a-half years ago. Break out the noisemakers and pointy hats, you might say. But, once again, I'm going to let Billmon (whose day job is in the Markets) tell the story:

The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a record high [Tuesday]: 11,727 -- four points higher than the previous record, set January 14, 2000. So if you invested $1,000 in the 30 companies in the Dow six years and almost nine months ago, you'd have $1000.34 today!

But, alas, if you invested that same amount in the S&P 500 Index (which in the winter of 2000 was bubbliciously full of tech stocks) you'd have only $910.56, and if you "invested" it in the companies in the Nasdaq Composite (the souffle of '90s equity indices) you'd have just $552.04.

Now, doesn't that make you feel better about the economy?

There is a bit of a feel-good element to the story of the Dow's having recovered its lost ground; but there is also little to suggest this is a turning point or that this is a leading indicator of a magical next few months where we all get a pony.

Hey, somebody has to be the downer at this party.

Okay, Fred: I see your Gerry Studds and raise you a Dan Crane

In Fred Dooley's never-ending war to make Democrats look bad for the Mark Foley's being a sexual predator, today he wants us to pay pennance for Gerry Studds, a Democrat who was found doing the same thing Foley did. I'll let Billmon tell the story:

Doing his bit for Operation Save Our Majority, Marc Ambinder at the Hotline (the National Journal's news service for political junkies) tries very hard to circulate a GOP urban legend:

It's the talking point of the day for Republicans -- and yes, it is a talking point.

Gerry Studds (D-MA) had sex with a 17-year-old male page in 1983. He was reprimanded. Republicans wanted to censure him. But 79 Dems voted against upgrading the condemnation.

It may be the talking point of the day, but it's also a lie. Studds was censured, not reprimanded -- even though the latter was the penalty recommended both for him and for GOP page bender Dan Crane by the House Ethics Committee. Republican backbenchers, led by that paragon of moral virtue, Newt Gingrich, wanted to expel them both.

The vote to upgrade Studds' reprimand to censure was 338 yeahs to 87 nays, and while I don't have the partisan breakdown, I wouldn't be surprised if 79 of those nay votes were Dems -- excessive partisanship being such a bipartisan disease in Washington. But, the vote to upgrade Crane's reprimand to a censure passed by only 289 yeahs to 136 nays. I'm guessing not all of those 136 votes were cast by the heathen Democrats.

In both cases, the final vote on censure was overwhelmingly lopsided -- 421 to 3 in Crane's case, and 420 to 3 in Studd's.

Fred will say Studds was cheered by the Dems; I doubt Republicans sat on their hands for Crane. Fred will tell you Studds was relected after the censure, but so was Crane. Nyah nyah nyah.

SPECIAL SIDE BET: Ten imaginary blog dollars says Fred won't stop throwing Mel Reynold at us, either, even though it is a completely misleading and dishonest argument. Example: This comment from under my Tuesday post:

Tell me, were you so rosy after Bill Clinton commuted the sentence of Mel Reynolds? If you recall Reynolds had ACTUAL SEX (not virtual) with a minor.

Sounds horrible, right? But consider the facts:

Just before leaving office, President Clinton (at the urging of Jesse Jackson, among others) commuted the sentence of former Illinois congressman Mel Reynolds, who had spent 30 months in a state prison for having sex with a 16-year-old campaign volunteer and was serving a five-year sentence in federal prison for lying to obtain loans and illegally diverting campaign money for personal use.

Got that? Reynolds had finished serving his sentence for statutory rape. Not to excuse Reynolds's behavior--it is as wrong or wronger than Foley's--but what Clinton pardoned Reynold for was the campaign fund abuse. To say Clinton pardoned commuted the sentence* of Reynolds for having sex with a minor is, simply, a lie.

Your move, Fred. Your move.

(Oh, and Fred: The person who leaked to ABC was not the "Soros-funded CREW" or Democratic operatives. It was a Republican. You now have officially no Democrat to blame for this.)

* Terminology corrected at Fred's request in the comments below. Fred also seems to have missed one last, larger point about Studds and Crane: Both of those Congressmen faced sanction after an investigation by the House Ethics Committee. If there is any difference between the Studds/Crane matter and the current situation, it's that the current House leadership refused to investigate even though they knew about emails to multiple pages as far back as 2003. When Fred tries to tell you it's Dems now applying a double standard, he's trying to distract from the real culprits.

In the interest of self-promotion

Some of you may have caught this story last month, and wondered, vaguely, if that wasn't the school where I was teaching, the one being closed down. It's true--though I don't ever really talk about "work" and whatnot, there have been enough hints dropped here and there that you could figure it out. But here's the part of the story that's interesting:

An overhaul of [. . .] one of the weakest-performing high schools in the Milwaukee Public Schools system was given a green light by a School Board committee Tuesday night. The most likely--but not yet certain--prospect is that the existing school will be replaced by a charter school being created by a group of current teachers [at that school].

The charter school intends to open next fall, offering a program known as First Things First, which is also being launched this year at Pulaski and Bradley Tech high schools. [. . .] The charter school [. . .] was approved in concept by the School Board on Aug. 31, but many details remain to be worked out, and no location was specified.

Four of the teachers involved in the plan testified in favor of the change Tuesday, although they expressed concern about possible problems during the two years they would share the building as the existing school is phased out.

The First Things First program, which has had great success in Kansas City, Kan., aims to create "small learning communities" within a school, build long-term relationships between small groups of students and specific adults on the school staff, and increase the use of teaching styles that are more engaging to students.

As it turns out, I am one of those "four teachers involved in the plan."

What we're putting together is really quite exciting. Even though the First Things First framework is a known quantity and successful around the country, the way we're implementing it is ground-breaking. Our school--which legitimately doesn't have a name yet, so I'm not hiding that--will be the first school to open, brand new, with the FTF framework in place. Previous implementations, including Tech and Pulaski here in MPS, have been transitions, moving existing staff and students into the framework. The new school will have a lot of new staff and mostly new students compared to the school we're replacing.

To that end, we're beginning to recruit staff for the school. I know I have a number of MPS teachers who read this blog, and I want to extend a slightly more personal invitation to high school teachers (and other staff, parents, or community members) in the district who might be interested in learning more. We've got five information sessions planned over the next month for teachers intrigued by the idea either of a large, comprehensive, instrumentality charter high school or by the First Things First framework itself. We're splitting up the work among the charter planning team, so I won't be at all of them (the asterisks indicate the ones I am presenting at), but here are the five sessions, starting this afternoon:

• *Wednesday October 4, 4:30 pm, Madison High School library
  
• *Saturday, October 21, 9:00 am, Pulaski High School library
  
• Wednesday, November 1, 4:30 pm, Central Services room 210
  
• *Saturday, November 4, 9:00 am, Pulaski High School library
  
• Tuesday, November 14, 4:30 pm, Central Services Cafeteria

There will be information presented about the FTF framework, the structure of the new school, the timeline for implementation and hiring, and an opportunity to ask questions.

Again, I think what we've got is going to be something pretty special. If it turns out you can't make any of these meetings, or if you have more questions, drop me an email and once I have answers and electronic copies of the documents we're presenting, I'll send them out to you.

It defies common sense

Fred Dooley is mad at me, again, this time because I mentioned the other day that I was waiting for him to condemn the House Republican leadership for promoting and protecting the predator Mark Foley. Fred's response is twofold. One, he says, he was waiting until the House leadership settled on one story to stick to (I'm paraphrasing), and two, Democrats also do bad things.

The story that the House leaders seem to have settled on--which K. Carpenter helpfully spells out in Fred's comment section--is that, whoops! The leadership never even saw the emails! If they--and by they, I mean NRCC Chairman Tom Reynolds, Majority Leader John Boehner, and Speaker Dennis Hastert--if they didn't see the emails, it was because the willfully wanted to remain ignorant about the situation. Perhaps Hastert and Boehner wanted the plausible deniabilty. Perhaps they hoped, upon learning that the parents were not ready to press charges or anything, that the story would melt away. But when you're a leader, and you hear that there is suspicious contact between one of your guys and a 16-year-old boy, you demand the emails. If you do any less, you fail to do your job.

We at least know others did see the emails: Rodney Alexander, the Republican who sponsored the page in question, and John Shimkus, who swept the matter under the rug by keeping the rest of the House Page Board out of the loop. (Shimkus appears to have known about Foley's behavior longer than just this round of emails.)

But one reason this whole story makes me crazy--and incredibly, incredibly sad--is that I know what I would do if I were in the situation of, say, Alexander, or of Tom Reynolds, who was the first person Alexander told. If a student or a parent came to me with emails from another teacher telling the student how hot he looked, asking for pictures, and so on, I would not stop until that teacher was out of the profession. If the teacher didn't resign on his own knowing the emails were out, I would start by going to the principal (Boehner), and, if that failed, I'd go to the superintendent (Hastert) and the board and the police and, if it came to it, the press. I would not shut up until that man stopped working with children.

I've known Fred (virtually) for a long time now, and I have to believe, given Fred's penchant for taking down anyone who writes, as Tony Snow might call them, "naughty emails," that Fred would do the same. If a parent went to Fred with those emails from a teacher to a student, Fred, too, would not quit until the man was out of teaching for good. That's the kind of tenacity Fred has always shown in these matters.

And I think that's what's at the root of so many Republicans' discontent right now: The House leadership didn't even rise to the moral and ethical standards a couple of two-bit Wisconsin bloggers hold. It defies common sense. It's why everyone from Bay Buchanan to John Cole to Michelle frickin' Malkin agree that those who knew--or should have known but decided to remain willfully ignorant--aided and abetted an abuser.

This was a week in which we saw the National Intelligence Estimate declare that the war in Iraq in increasing terrorism worldwide; Colin Powell say he was fired; Condi Rice on the verge of having to resign; Bill Frist say that the Taliban should rule Afghanistan; that the White House met with Jack Abramoff 485 times; that Abramoff knew about "the coming war in Iraq" in early 2002; and Bob Woodward's book saying the Bush administration is lying about Iraq. That's a lot to digest, a lot of reason to vote for Democrats in November. But much of that is nuance, or requires a knowledge of stuff that not everyone has, or calls for connecting too many dots. This Foley thing is one story, one simple story, and it resonates.

The Republicans protected and promoted a predator. Period.

The news is making me sick

Another school shooting, and more on the Mark Foley thing . . . Makes me nauseated.

I teach. I teach 16-year-old boys. To think that anyone could read the initially released emails and not get queasy . . .

Sorry. Just not up to blogging today.

More Wisconsin Connections to the Foley Scandal: John Gard has some 'splainin to do

(Slight update at 4:00 pm to add another $10,000.)

The Brew City Brawler pointed out yesterday--though I didn't see it until this afternoon--that Republican candidate for the Wisconsin 8th Congressional District John Gard has Foley problems. No, Mark Foley has never given money to Gard (the way he did for gubernatorial candidate Mark Green), but Gard did get money from some people tied to the Foley scandal:

• Gard received $10,000 from Republican Majority Leader John Boehner's Freedom Project PAC. Boehner not only knew about Foley's problems, but helped cover up for them. He also lied for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, retracting a statement originally claiming he'd told Hastert after the Speaker's office initially denied it. Now Hastert's office admits to knowing.
  
  
• Gard also took $5,000 from Hastert's Keep Our Majority PAC.
  
  
• Gard took another $10,000 from the Together for Our Majority PAC (TOMPAC), which is the PAC of Tom Reynolds--the Congressman from New York, not the nutty Wisconsin State Senator. Reynolds, who chairs the NRCC--the campigan committee for House Republicans--was the first elected official that was told of Foley's behavior almost a year ago. That's right--the first guy told was the political guy, not the Speaker of the House, the Majority Leader, or even the Republican on the House Page Board. Tells you where their priorities are, eh?
  
  
• Finally, Gard scored $2,000 from John Shimkus's John S Fund PAC. Shimkus is the Republican member of the House Page Board, the group that oversees the House Pages and makes sure everything goes okay with that program. Shimkus and the Board's clerk met, reviewed the allegations against Foley, and decided against doing an investigation or even informing the lone Democrat on the panel, Dale Kildee.

Gard needs to explain how and why he thinks it's a good idea to keep $27,000 in PAC money from men who knowingly participated in the cover-up of crimes and inappropriate behavior.

Republicans' Live Boy; or, It's Not the Crime, It's the Cover-Up

By now, you've almost certainly heard that Floridan Republican Congressman Mark Foley was forced to resign after news broke of, apparently, years of his inappropriate (and possibly illegal) on-line activities with underage House Pages. There are some awkward emails from the past year or so, as well as some pretty bad IMs from a couple of years back, that paint a disturbing picture of Foley.

Now, there's no question that Foley's regination was the right thing, as is the universal condemnation of what he did. The problem is that the Republican leadership both knew about Foley's Page problem for almost a year now and they did nothing but try to cover it up. Everyone from Majority Leader John Boehner to Speaker Dennis Hastert knew about the issue, and, rather than force Foley out a long time ago--or offer a full-blown investigation--they chose to sweep the mess under the rug.

Among the more incredible details is that the House Page Board not only did nothing to stop Foley, but they purposely left the Board's sole Democrat out of the process, thereby keeping the whole thing soley under Republican control. They have no one but themselves to blame for the unravelling of this cover-up.

As much as the Right Cheddarsphere loves to blame the words and actions of even the most fringe Democrats on the leadership of the party (even going so far as to say, for example, that the Democratic National Committee calls Bush a murderer, though only those farthest-out and least connected to the leadership ever get close), I would have expected to see more criticism directed at the Republican leadership. But after a tour of the usual suspects, I found that only Owen condemns the corruption at the top of that ladder.

And there is an incredibly sad irony to all of this: Foley was Co-Chair of the Missing and Exploited Children Caucus in the House, and remained so right up until his resignation Friday. Foley was apparently instrumental in getting the "Adam Walsh Child Protection Act of 2006" passed--a law that, as Glenn Greenwald points out, Foley was violating. Josh Marshall has been following this story closely (see this post for a taste of that sad irony, just as an example).

There are also some Wisconsin connections. No Wisconsin Republicans are in the House leadership, of course. However, our very own F. Jim Sensenbrenner, as Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, helped shepherd the Adam Walsh Act through Congress, and, in fact, stood near Foley as Bush signed the bill. (Foley's House website has been scrubbed, and apparently they're working fast to get his name off of everything. The Google search that led me to that link named Foley in the caption to the picture, but the caption now does not name him! This is a screenshot of another photo that's been scrubbed, but the caption still indicates that Foley and Sensenbrenner were there together.) An email to Sensenbrenner's campaign asking about that day--and about whether Sensenbrenner's made a statement on the matter, since I couldn't find one--has not yet been returned.

And Mark Green, now running for governor, also has Foley connections. He's not released a statement (nothing here, here, or here) that I can see. But Green should be at least a little concerned, since a $1000 contribution from Foley's PAC helped Mark Green first win his seat in 1998. Again, an email to Green's campaign about this has gone unreturned.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Mark Green (and F. Jim) are members of the most corrupt Republican Congress--the most corrupt Congress, period--in memory. That the leadership would willing protect an internet predator is just a drop in the bucket here, yet typical of what you might expect of a Republican Caucus that would change its rules to protect indicted leaders.

It is a shame that it's taken the proverbial "live boy" to make that clear to so much of the public.