A New Month, A New Template--NOT!

Thanks for all of your positive notes about the new look. But it's going to take a while before it debuts here, mostly because I'm stupid. Details there, where the comments aren't working.

A Good Day to Have a GoogleNews Alert for "Jay Bullock"

by folkbum

Because not only am I featured in Wiggy's column (where I co-star with Cindy Sheehan, of all people), it turns out that I also transport autos around Europe:

One of the most unusual and highly specialised fleets in the UK has taken delivery of four new Euro 5 compliant Volvo FH-440 4x2 tractor units - part of a total order for six.

CARS, the initials stand for Classic Automotive Relocation Services, store, transport and arrange shipping for some of the most valuable and collectable cars in the world. [. . .]

CARS Director Jay Bullock says that the company chose Volvo and Euro 5 for safety and environmental reasons and the fact that Volvo had Euro 5 compliant engines readily available to order. Presenting a high-quality company image is also vital to the operation, he says. “Not normal is our business! Our customers demand very high quality service and the image of our vehicles is very important.”

“The Euro 5 Volvo’s are state-of-the-art and we have good personal service from the Dealer. If one of our customers asks us to collect a three million dollar car at a certain time, we have to be there. These trucks could be meeting an Antonov cargo plane at Stansted one day to unload the cars belonging to the competitors returning from the Beijing to Paris rally and delivering a unique, classic car to a collector in Barcelona for a film shoot the next. We need top class trucks with best in the business back-up. That’s why we chose Volvo.”

I am looking for a new car. I'd be happy with a Volvo . . .

(Two things about Wiggy's column: He tries to make this blog a year older than it is. And I may respond more later, but I'm under deadline for my own column . . .)

Demands

I wrote most of a draft of this post this morning, but, screw it. Just go read this. It's better than I was doing.

Among other things

I'm updating the Blogroll. If I'm missing you, tell me.

I'm also testing a [GASP!] three-column template, if you care to offer an opinion on it so far.

McIlheran Watch: I think I'm owed an apology

by folkbum (UPDATED below)

I'd like to see Patrick McIlheran spin his way out of this:

An unclassified summary of outed CIA officer Valerie Plame's employment history at the spy agency, disclosed for the first time today in a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, indicates that Plame was "covert" when her name became public in July 2003. [. . .]

The unclassified summary of Plame's employment with the CIA at the time that syndicated columnist Robert Novak published her name on July 14, 2003 says, "Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA employee for who the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States."

Plame worked as an operations officer in the Directorate of Operations and was assigned to the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) in January 2002 at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

The employment history indicates that while she was assigned to CPD, Plame, "engaged in temporary duty travel overseas on official business." The report says, "she traveled at least seven times to more than ten times." When overseas Plame traveled undercover, "sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias -- but always using cover -- whether official or non-official (NOC) -- with no ostensible relationship to the CIA."

McIlheran's not the only one, of course, who sputtered and blustered for the last three years that Valerie Plame was not covert, and, therefore, Scotter Libby was railroaded. But his bluster was plenty loud, and loaded with falsehoods (and how!).

He seemed bothered that I insisted on accuracy. But I do, and when last we left the matter, he not only seemed convinced that Scooter Libby did nothing wrong (though Libby admitted to giving Plame's name to reporters), but that Plame wasn't really all that covert. Let's see if he corrects the record.

UPDATE: I should add this:

Special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald has made it clearer than ever that he was hot on the trail of a coordinated campaign to out CIA agent Valerie Plame until that line of investigation was cut off by the repeated lies from Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. [. . .]

Despite all the public interest in the case, Fitzgerald has repeatedly asserted that grand-jury secrecy rules prohibit him from being more forthcoming about either the course of his investigation or any findings beyond those he disclosed to make the case against Libby. But when his motives have been attacked during court proceedings, Fitzgerald has occasionally shown flashes of anger -- and has hinted that he and his investigative team suspected more malfeasance at higher levels of government than they were able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

In Friday's eminently readable court filing, Fitzgerald quotes the Libby defense calling his prosecution "unwarranted, unjust, and motivated by politics." In responding to that charge, the special counsel evidently felt obliged to put Libby's crime in context. And that context is Dick Cheney.

Libby's lies, Fitzgerald wrote, "made impossible an accurate evaluation of the role that Mr. Libby and those with whom he worked played in the disclosure of information regarding Ms. Wilson's CIA employment and about the motivations for their actions." [. . .]

Not clear on the concept yet? Fitzgerald adds: "To accept the argument that Mr. Libby's prosecution is the inappropriate product of an investigation that should have been closed at an early stage, one must accept the proposition that the investigation should have been closed after at least three high-ranking government officials were identified as having disclosed to reporters classified information about covert agent Valerie Wilson, where the account of one of them was directly contradicted by other witnesses, where there was reason to believe that some of the relevant activity may have been coordinated, and where there was an indication from Mr. Libby himself that his disclosures to the press may have been personally sanctioned by the Vice President."

McIlheran and his ilk have been insisting for three years that the Libby case, the whole investigation into who leaked a CIA agent's name to the press and why, has been pointless. But here it is clear both that the investigation was necessary and that Libby's obstruction made it more difficult (as obstruction often does) for FItzgerald to get to the bottom of what happened. To suggest now that he was a scapegoat, or that he should be pardoned, is ridiculous.

It's not a happy blogoversary

So I've been at this four years, today. Woo.

I'm in one of my periodic what's-the-point-of-blogging slumps, which is a big part of why this space has been quiet for a few days. That, and work in and out of the house, car shopping, quality time with my charcoal grill . . .

But it's also Memorial Day, and it's mind-boggling to me that, since this day last year, we have nearly 1000 new American dead to remember. How can a blogoversary compare to that?

We have, it seems, a whole mess of Republicans running for president intent not just on killing thousands more in this damned war, but in fully buying into the lies that got us here. How can I celebrate that?

We're learning this Memorial Day even more about just how outrage-inducing indeed these memorials truly are, how utterly unnecessary each and every one of the thousands of deaths. And for four years, this blog has been a witness. It's not something to be proud of, to be happy for, to be excited over.

This Memorial Day, every American should be ashamed of where we are, how far we've come, and what price we've paid these four years.

Hence, the silence.

What are you really looking for?

by folkbum

Someone today in Medway, Massachussetts (halfway between Boston and Woonsocket, if you didn't know) found this blog today googling sesquicentennial observances toilets. I'm proud to say I was result number 8.

But I have to ask: What was he really looking for?

How far out of the mainstream is Jessica McBride?

by folkbum

I almost feel bad for piling on, but this is too easy not to take the shot. Tuesday, McBride blogged about the proposed immigration bill, the deal struck between Congress and the president:

How far out of the mainstream is the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board?

So far out of the mainstream they think the amnesty immigration bill is "ugly" and "un-American."

No, not because they think it's too lenient. They think it's too tough!

The "they think" link takes you to the editorial where, indeed, they write that "ugly is too kind a description" for the bill. They cite, for example, the lack of a provision that would allow families to be together and changing how businesses sponsor employees through the H1-B program. Mostly, though, there's this:

It will entail a historic repudiation of that quintessential American value: that people who come here from other countries to labor to make this country richer and stronger deserve a chance to formally become one of us through legal residency or citizenship.

The guest worker portion of this measure says that only their sweat and toil are worthy. The mostly Latino workers themselves are not. [. . . ] The re-entry part is problematic because immigrants will have to be convinced that there is no risk in leaving. If they discern risk that might separate them from their jobs and their families, they might opt to remain in the shadows.

But the lack of a path to legal residency for the temporary workers makes certain that they will remain in those shadows. Under this measure, they could only be temporary workers for two years, renewing twice but only if they spend one year outside the country between each stint. This only assures that these two-year workers will prefer to remain here--undocumented and exploited.

This is the part that McBride seems to have a problem with, the complaint that the measure is "too tough" to be useful. She and the rest of the conservative noise machine find any path to a legal status to be "amnesty" and, therefore, "too lenient." It will only take you a few seconds with google and a pair of hip-waders to find outrage at GOP lawmakers supporting this plan in the swamp that is conservative blogosphere. (Sean Hackbarth has an example.)

Problem is, McBride and the conservative bloggers are the ones "out of the mainstream" on immigration. This is a pretty common theme, I've noticed. I remember it from last year about this time when Russ Feingold was asking for a censure of President Bush and every conservative blogger in the state insisted he was "out of the mainstream" or selling out to the "drum circle left." Yet when you looked at where the general public was really at, Feingold was dead on with public opinion. Those bloggers just assumed that because Feingold disagreed with them, he must have been on the fringes, while never considering that, perhaps, it was their own attitudes that were on the fringe.

The same thing is true for immigration, if you look at the actual poll numbers. Responses vary based on the wording of the question, but you get a sense that in general, the kind of strict closed-border, deport-them-all policy McBride and Co. would favor is decidedly not what the public would want.

• From a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll done May 4-6: 53% oppose building aborder fence, 50% oppose a guest worker progam without citizenship as a possibility, and a whopping 80% favor some path to citizenship for illegal immigrants here now.
  
• From a USA Today/Gallup Poll in the field April 13-15, 2007: 76% prefer a path to citizenship, either leaving and returning (42%) or staying (36%).
  
• From a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg Poll taken April 5-9, 2007: 55% say guest workers should be a part of an immigration bill, 40% say only border security.
  
• From another USA Today/Gallup Poll done March 2-4, 2007: 59% think illegal immigrants should be able to stay if they "meet certain requirements"; only 24% say "deport them all."

I haven't come down one way or the other on this immigration bill. I think, generally, trying to round up and deport 12 million people will be a much more expensive and time-consuming process than is ultimately worth whatever gain might come from it. I also think it would be better to have people who are here visible and, therefore, not so concerned about who might discover them that they would be willing to kill a Kenosha sheriff's deputy, for example.

But what is certain is that McBride cannot claim that the Journal Sentinel editorial board is out of the mainstream here. She is.

One for all you union-bashers

Buried in an editorial about the news that the state's--and the Milwaukee Public Schools'--scores on WKCE math tests moved up a bit is this tidbit:

Notably, schools in Milwaukee that received extra resources through a National Education Association grant had bigger gains than did MPS as a whole. The lesson: Resources spent wisely make a difference.

The NEA ponied up its money, from its dues-paying members, in an effort to close the achievement gap. It seems to have helped raise scores overall. (We won't know until the disaggregated data are available whether the gap closed.)

But where was the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce with its grant to raise achievement? Or the Club for Growth? Or School Choice Wisconsin? Or any of the other groups or individuals who regularly bash the unions for not caring about kids or education?

I thought so.

Stone Phillips has been let go by NBC

So says Tim Cuprisin. No word yet on what it was Phillips said about Eugene Kane to get himself fired.

A final McFiasco post

by folkbum

This is a post mostly just to gather the last few thought strands about the whole mess. I'm not saying I'll never write about anything related again; don't get me wrong. But this is some important stuff you shouldn't overlook.

Some of you who read me by accident (or because you live with me) may be wondering what the big deal is. And it is a big deal. Fact is, Friday (when McBride was fired) and today (when everyone got back into the office to find that McBride was fired) have been two of my highest-traffic days ever. I'm talking numbers that rival recent election days. (Unfortunately, I don't get paid unless [DEPENDENT CLAUSE REDACTED TO SATISFY GOOGLE'S SENSE OF PROPRIETY].)

But why? I can't help but be reminded of Seth Zlotocha's question of so long ago. (Actually, it was only February, but the fact that it feels like so long ago kind of proves his point.) He wondered whether the kind of blogging we do actually helps or hurts, since the most excitement, the most buzz, comes from this kind of intensely partisan and ultimately small-potatoes issue. Seth, admirably, has kept silent on the entire McFiasco, choosing instead to do really important work on matters that, someday, will make a difference in the world. And here I am explaining, repeatedly, in comments all over the Cheddarsphere that no, I don't particularly care about Eugene Kane and any part he may or may not have played in the drama.

So, why? Because it's about us. The keys are flying off our keyboards over this mess because, regardless of whether we're liberal or conservative, Jessica McBride is one of us. Even we bloggers who would not agree with her if she posited that the sky were blue on sunny days have to look at what she does, and what we do, and see, in fact, some similarity. You can think she's horrible at it, but at the end, the it is this. In any small group, gossip about the group is inherently perceived as more important than discussion of things outside of the group. Children dying in the streets? Nah, let's talk about McBride. Troops dying in Iraq? Nah, let's talk about McBride. Incompetent justice department? Health care crisis? Underfunded schools? Nah--did you hear the one about McBride . . .?

I'm not saying we shouldn't have done this. In-group policing is a key part of belonging to a group, after all. I'm just trying to explain why this, of all topics we could have thrown down about over the last week, is the one that got the attention.

[UPDATED to add: McBride, as well, has been upfront about admitting the relationship between conservative bloggers and the megaphone of talk radio. And that liberal blogs lack such a megaphone. I have always given McBride credit for that, when Sykes and Co. deny, deny, deny.]***Most of the interesting commentary from the weekend was collected at WisOpinion today. Mike Schramm forever has his finger on the pulse of the blogosphere, today being no exception.

Two posts you absolutely must read--and I'm not kidding, people, this is mandatory: Nick Schweitzer's explanation of why McBride and her supporters in the McFiasco cannot blame Eugene Kane. Nick said it better than I could, and in language even the dimmest bulb could understand. Also, you must read Jason Haas's account of attending Jasmine Owens's funeral. UPDATED to add: Check out Erik Opsal's omnibus post, too.

Some on the right (encouraged by hints among McBride's excuses) are raising the suggestion that the McFiasco is purely the result of someone with a personal axe to grind against McBride. First, as I suggest in the comments to my previous post, if we ignored every blogger with an axe to grind, we'd never have anything to read. James Rowen can speak for himself on the matter of whether his grapes are sour (I suspect they are not). But as one who, in the words of a certain Marquette University professor, "carries water" for Jim on the matter, let me explain: It matters not who first noticed that a thing was done. It matters only that thing was done, and, in this case, the thing was wrong in itself. If we cannot call something wrong because of the origin of that knowledge, then we have lost something critical about our ability to think and discuss rationally.

It's also important to remember that pretty much none of us asked for McBride to be fired, only for an apology. Her firing precludes--or perhaps is a substitute for--that, so after all is said and done, we axe-grinders didn't even get what we wanted. The only one I see calling for McBride to be fired now from UWM is Michael McGee, Jr., who as I'm sure you're all aware, speaks for practically no one but himself. Certainly not me, certainly not Jim Rowen. (Aside: Would McGee ever get any exercise if he weren't constantly chasing that spotlight around?)

There's one more long, long post in my head about anti-intellectualism on the right that is tangentially related, since it is inspired by this post defending McBride. A part of that defense seems to be a discussion of how Rush Limbaugh's "Barack the Magic Negro" song is not only not offensive, but hilarious. As Barbara O'Brien asks, where's the joke? Let that link be a primer and, in case I never write the whole post, enough of a response for now.

Don't Make McBride a Martyr

by folkbum

As I wrote last night, Dennis Miller on the radio instead of Jessica McBride isn't necessarily a "win." The temptation will be both to celebrate her disappearance from radio and to take credit for it. This is not wise.

As I went back through our various postings from this week, starting with Jim Rowen who broke the story on through to the fine folks at Whallah, almost no one called for her to be fired--merely for her to apologize. (Jason did, though he was the only one I found.) Mostly, we were looking for some recognition that she crossed a line--an apology. I haven't heard that the apology has happened yet, so for anyone to insinuate that we got what we wanted--as Patrick and others do here--is wrong. We didn't get that at all.

Additionally, as much as McBride's opinions may not have added one iota of diversity to the airwaves in Milwaukee, she was, at least, a woman on talk radio. Patrick, in the link just above, speculates that WTMJ "used this non-story as cover for firing a woman." Dennis Miller adds nothing to WTMJ-AM to make it look or sound any more like what Milwaukee looks and sounds like, and McBride's firing leaves WTMJ with a grand total of two weekly hours of local programming hosted by women, neither hour remotely political. (They do run Laura Ingraham's crappy show in the middle of the night.) That Miller would be the replacement does not speak well of whatever intentions WTMJ might have to make their programming more diverse in any way--not just ideologically.

Mostly, though, I want to be careful that we don't make McBride a martyr. Some on the right are already trying, even going to so far as to call those of us who asked for an apology "little fascists." (Of course, that seems perfectly in character for that blogger.) McBride will undoubtedly find something else to do. I'd just rather she do it as "McBride, mediocre radio host," and not "McBride, conservative martyr." No point in feeding that beast.

Support a Remedy to Violence in MPS

by krshorewood

All of us on the left and right are concerned about the violence MPS students and teachers have to deal with on a regular basis.

One organization has a solution to the problem that has a better affect on kids' lives than handcuffs.

For the past few years the Peace Learning Center has been working with MPS students to teach them a positive, non-violent approach to their interpersonal relationships. Through their programs they have reached over 2,000 students, equipping them to navigate there way through school to a more productive adult life.

On Wednesday, May 23rd there will be a fundraiser dinner for the Peace Learning Center at the Northshore Presbyterian Church in Shorewood.

Join Mayor Tom Barrett to recognize and support this positive force in our city.

Tickets are $25 and available by contacting the church office at 414-332-8130 during business hours to reserve your ticket, or contact Keith Schmitz (kschmitz@grassrootsnorthshore.org / 414.963.0847).

This is your chance to show the community's solidarity behind programs such as these which are achieving real progress.

Along with Chinese diner provided by Royal Garden in Glendale, look in on a demonstration of the techniques the PLC use to help MPS students interact successfully.

The dinner is at 6:00pm and doors open at 5:30pm.

NSPC is located at 4048 N. Bartlett Ave, one block west of Oakland Ave. and one block north of Capitol Dr.

McBride out!

by folkbum
UPDATED! Twice! Thrice!!!

I would have let it go at an apology:

WTMJ-AM (620) will replace Jessica McBride in the 8 p.m. to 11 slot next Thursday, adding Dennis Miller's new syndicated talk show to its lineup when sports isn't scheduled.

Here's the statement issued by WTMJ this afternoon:

Newsradio 620 WTMJ Proclaims Miller Time!
MILWAUKEE, Wis. – Five-time Emmy award winner and four-time Writers' Guild award winner Dennis Miller will join the lineup from 8:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m. beginning Thursday, May 24th on Newsradio 620 WTMJ. Tom Parker, 620 WTMJ Program Director made the announcement today.

The press release says this has been in the works a while--implying, therefore, that it has nothing to with the unpleasantness this week. I've sent some emails to try to learn more. We'll see how this develops.

Update: Jon Schweitzer writes:

The Dennis Miller thing is a permanent move. Jessica McBride will not be on the air anymore. The decision was made some time ago. We thought [today] was a good time to announce it.

We feel Jessica's viewpoints and opinions are very interesting and thought provoking. We are still discussing the possibilities concerning her blog and the website.

What this seems to mean: McBride was not ousted over the Jasmine Owens story or--sorry to break your heart, fellas--Jim's and Wallah's efforts.

There are probably more sides to this story, still. There will be a lot more written and said about it, including, I can safely predict, a significant part of the Right Cheddarsphere trying to blame us. Exactly those of us that Jon Schweitzer seems to be saying we can't actually credit for her ouster. Probably including me.

You can read the press release itself squeezed onto her blog page.

Update II: I feel the need to point out that this is not necessarily a "win," by the way. Dennis Miller has issues with good taste and the truth. Here are just two of his greatest hits.

Update III: More than just saying that today "was a good time" to announce McBride's departure--with whatever we could read into that--Schweitzer made it explicit to both Cuprisin and the Business Journal that the Jasmine Owens story accelerated the move that was, indeed, in the works. The Biz Journal actually implies that dropping McBride was a part of the array of changes announced this week on WTMJ and WKTI.

The Miller Show has only been running since late March, and currently only airs on one Wisconsin station. It will be running 11 hours after live on WTMJ.

As I was finishing this update, Cuprisin's Saturday Column was posted.

McBride and Clarke: People who need to apologize

by folkbum
UPDATED BELOW! TWICE!!

A couple of stories that I haven't been following as closely as I should (I was in Madison much of the day yesterday):

One: It's bad enough that the recent foiled Ft. Dix attack plot has brought out Jessica McBride's inner dictator (which puts her in good company, as her new-found Milosevic-love is just like the Pinochet-love we saw when he died). Now, as Jim Rowen notes, McBride apparently thinks that the drive-by shooting of a four-year-old innocent is cause for laughter:

WTMJ-AM 620 rightwing talker and blogger Jessica McBride stages a fake interview with one of her frequent targets--Milwaukee Journal Sentinel local columnist Eugene Kane--and supplies chicken squawking sound effects as Kane's answers, since he didn't accept the interview invitation.

No surprise there, as McBride says the idea behind the kind of interview she wanted to do with Kane is to hammer a liberal on the air, so what, from the 'guest's' point of view, would be the point?

Here's her posting site [NOTE: link not included because the audio has been removed from the TMJ website], with the audio McBride supplies--and it seems as if you going to hear another juvenile but relatively harmless political radio rip...except that McBride uses those comedic sound effects for 'Kane's' answer to a question about the recent, horrific Jasmine Owens murder.

Jasmine is the little girl killed by a bullet to the head in a Milwaukee drive-by shooting.

Wow. Just, wow. I mean, I guess McBride is responsible for where she draws her own lines about what is and what is not appropriate. But in the hours after that murder, to use it as a cheap jab against a political opponent--with chicken-clucking sound effects--seems like it crosses almost any reasonable line.

And someone at WTMJ also seems to think it crosses the line, since, as I noted in the text I quoted from Jim Rowen, the audio that was available of this hard-to-believe moment is now gone--it's been disappeared from the site. I was mocked last week when I suggested that we liberals start collecting our own tape of these events if we want to mount successful campaigns againts these hateful hosts. Now you know why I said it: You can't trust these people to make the audio of their own career-threatening gaffes available.

The fine folks at the McBride-themed Whallah! blog are demanding an apology, and I think that's a good start. McBride's and TMJ's contact information can be found there.

UPDATE: Whallah has a lot more.

UPDATE II: Tim Cuprisin is also tracking blog comment. In response to a question about why he doesn't do more on McBride, Cuprisin says,

Her audience isn't very large and she generally doesn't say anything that you haven't heard on at least three other Milwaukee talk shows and dozens of national radio programs.

Best comment on McBride I've heard all day.

Two: Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke is kind of a local example of what some of my liberal blogging colleagues call the "codpiece effect," after George W. Bush's mis-wearing of a flight suit that created said effect--and the conservatives went all gooey for that, and Bush's tough talk. (You see the current round of GOP candidates trying for the same effect.) Clarke is like that: All talk, all bluster, but man do the conservatives just melt inside when they listen to his militant rhetoric!

Clarke was on talk radio the other day doing what he does best, trying to sound tough. Problem is, he often doesn't know what he's talking about. A case in point would be some of what he said about the Milwaukee Public Schools. Ken Mobile caught this first:

Sheriff Clark criticizes MPS for not making any referrals to the District Attorneys of Parents of truant students. “Parents are not being held accountable.” Clarke says, Clarke continues “look at how many referrals by MPS of parents being referred to the DA’s office for truant students, the answer is 0.”

Patrick at Badger Blogger has the audio, and this statement comes a little after the seven minute mark. And, as Ken points out, he's absolutely wrong--a Journal Sentinel article Ken found marked the start of a program to refer truants' parents to the DA back in 2004.

I work at an MPS high school, one with some truancy problems. I know the people who process the "DA letters," as we call them, on the truant students. I know the people who gather the data, the people who make phone calls and home visits to try to track these students down, and, yes, the people who send the names off to the DA's office for action. For Clarke to sit there and say that zero parents get referred for truancy is not just a lie, it's an insult to the people who do the difficult work at my school, and other schools around the district, of identifying and trying to track down truants.

Ken further points out that Clarke has cut youth services at the Sheriff's department, so he has no authority to speak from on how to help Milwaukee's children and schools. So Clarke also should be making apologies. Maybe he should go on McBride's show and they could apologize together.

The Vote Fraud Myth: The media wakes; will Wisconsin's conservatives?

I thought I was clever when I called vote fraud the Republicans' Freddy Krueger, and started putting the pieces together that the whole thing was just people getting punk'd by Karl Rove. The traditional media has finally been picking up on the theme, too.

Yesterday's Washington Post, for example, has Harold Meyerson:

With the home office in Washington breathing down their necks, why did these experienced prosecutors fail to bring voter fraud indictments? The crime, after all, had become a major Justice Department concern. Starting in 2002, Justice required every U.S. attorney to designate a district election officer, whose job it would be to end this epidemic of electoral fraud. These officers' attendance was required at annual training seminars, where they were taught how to investigate, prosecute and convict fraudulent voters. The statutes were adequate; the investigators were primed, well funded and raring to go.

And nothing happened. For the simple reason that when it comes to voter fraud in America, there's no there there. Voter fraud is a myth -- not an urban or rural myth, as such, but a Republican one.

McClatchy newspapers has been doing a bang-up job on the vote fraud myth so far, and they had this last week, reinforcing the local angle:

Only weeks before last year's pivotal midterm elections, the White House urged the Justice Department to pursue voter-fraud allegations against Democrats in three battleground states, a high-ranking Justice official has told congressional investigators.

In two instances in October 2006, President Bush's political adviser, Karl Rove, or his deputies passed the allegations on to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' then-chief of staff, Kyle Sampson.

Sampson tapped Gonzales aide Matthew Friedrich, who'd just left his post as chief of staff of the criminal division. In the first case, Friedrich agreed to find out whether Justice officials knew of "rampant" voter fraud or "lax" enforcement in parts of New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and report back.

But Friedrich declined to pursue a related matter from Wisconsin, he told congressional investigators, because an inquiry so close to an election could inappropriately sway voting results. Friedrich decided not to pass the matter on to the criminal division for investigation, even though Sampson gave him a 30-page report prepared by Republican activists that made claims of voting fraud.

Read the whole thing; it looks like perhaps it wasn't Steve Biskupic's specious prosecution of Georgia Thompson that saved him from the rath of Rove, but rather Rove's fear of Jim Sensenbrenner.

Anyway, we now have the "30-page report" (the last 30 pages of this .pdf) that Republicans here prepared about vote fraud in Milwaukee. As Paul Kiel points out,

it was nothing but a collection of news clippings related to voter fraud allegations in Milwaukee... in the 2004 election.

Two things about that. First, it appears that Rove wanted the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation of two-year old allegations right before the 2006 election. But second, these allegations had already been investigated -- as part of the most comprehensive effort by a U.S. attorney's office to investigate voter fraud in the entire country. The U.S. attorney there, Steven Biskupic, launched a joint task force with local prosecutors to probe allegations of fraud in the 2004 election. Finally, more than a year after the election, Biskupic announced that the task force hadn't in fact found evidence of a conspiracy to steal the election. But prosecutors nevertheless prosecuted nearly twenty individual cases for a variety of voting-related offenses (Biskupic's office handled 14). No U.S. attorney office in the country can touch those numbers.

But that apparently wasn't good enough for Rove, who thought that Biskupic had been "lax" in his approach to voter fraud.

The most-commented-upon posts I've written lately have been the ones on this vote fraud myth. Many of those comments are from conservatives who can't seem to stomach the notion that they've been punk'd, that Rove has pulled one over on them, that the state's Republicans are using and abusing their trust. I don't know how much more needs to come out, how many more times we have to go over the story, how much clearer it needs to be. How much longer until, as those running from Freddy Krueger should, Wisconsin's conservative's will wake up already?

Ziegler's first skate

Who has time to review the whole sordid story? Well, you might, that's why I provided the link. But here's all you need to know now:

State Supreme Court Justice-elect Annette Ziegler agreed to pay the state about $17,000 in a settlement that said she violated the state ethics code by ruling on five cases involving a bank her husband helps run. [. . .]

By settling the matter, Ziegler avoids a hearing in the matter today that could have seen her called to the witness stand. Nonetheless, she remains under scrutiny as the subject of a separate investigation by the state Judicial Commission, which is looking at a broader group of cases.

In the settlement, Ziegler acknowledged she violated the ethics code by handling five cases in recent years involving West Bend Savings Bank, where her husband, J.J. Ziegler, is paid about $20,000 a year as a member of the board of directors. The state ethics code says public officials cannot act on matters in which they have a financial interest.

The board determined that Ziegler did not gain financially from her rulings.

Got it? No Ziegler under oath today. She won't be forced to detail in open court what her thinking was as she repeatedly violated the state's code of judicial ethics. She won't have to make any statements on the record that could be used against her when she runs for re-election in a decade.

There's still the Judicial Commission, but anything that Commission says will be non-binding unless acted upon by the state Supreme Court. While I think the Commission will probably scold Ziegler, I'm betting the Court will not do a thing about it. Ziegler skates once today, and will again when her new colleagues choose to let the Commission's recommendations slide.

Former Milwaukee Anchor, All Growed Up on MSNBC, Unfairly Maligned by My Distinguished Colleagues on the Left

You remember Contessa Brewer, right? Used to host the weekend news on channel 4 here in Milwaukee? Well, now she's a daytime anchor on MSNBC, all national and whatnot.

Today, during MSNBC's coverage of Jerry Falwell's death, she was handed a piece of copy praising Falwell from the parody web site, www.whitehouse.org. She later tried to correct the mistake, but still didn't seem to know that it was a parody site, and didn't tell viewers that the praise for Falwell there was not serious. You can watch Josh Marshall of the Talking Points Memo family of blogs discuss it, with a clip of Brewer from MSNBC on YouTube. mcjoan at DailyKos front-paged it, even Atrios talked about it. We all had a good giggle.

But I don't think we're being fair, either to Brewer, or to her producer. When you google jerry falwell white house--as someone tasked with finding the White House's or president's opinion on Falwell might--the whitehouse.org page is the second hit. The first hit, though, is a whitehouse.gov press release from this afternoon headlined "President and Mrs. Bush Saddened by Death of Jerry Falwell." It is reasonable to conclude, then, that the google search would have turned up the whitehouse.org link as the top hit when the producer did his or her search.

Now, Brewer really should have been told that it was a parody--and should have told the audience that it was a parody. But she herself wasn't looking at the webpage. At most, blame the producer, not Brewer.

Am I feeling protective of the hometown girl* who made it big out there in the cold, hard world? Maybe. But of all the things to dump on the anchors for, this ain't one.

*Well, I'm pretty sure she's not from here. And didn't she used to be blonde?

The Best Two-Paragraph Argument for Universal Health Care I've Ever Read

From Ben Brothers:

At present, health insurance companies compete with each other largely on the basis of their ability to avoid paying for health care — denying claims, refusing coverage to sick people, collecting as many premiums as possible from healthy people who are unlikely to need care, increasing premiums to the extent the 47 million Americans are unable to buy into the system, and generally behaving in an immoral and socially destructive way.

If we mandate guaranteed issue with community rating, they would be forced to compete on the basis of efficiency and quality of service, instead of pool selection. And it’s hard to see how universal health care will work without those things.

Jerry Falwell, Dead

Steve Benen has a fact-based retrospective. I do hope, for his sake, that his God is not as wrathful as Falwell made Him out to be.