This why I hate people

(for lack of a better title)
by folkbum

A certain member of the right-wing Xenophobiasphere that I am not really linking to anymore nonetheless prompts this post. He celebrated a recent decision in Philadelphia that ruled a sign placed in a window of a cheesesteak shop was not overly discriminatory against immigrants or some such. Because, you know, the front line of the immigration battle is cheesesteak stands.

Here's the sign:



Here's the postcard I want to send to the guy:

Dear "Joey":

When making "signs," please use quotation marks "correctly." If you're going to "demand" that people speak only "one" language, then you should learn to use that one language "yourself."

"Sincerely,"
folkbum

Let's Split -- Torinus Has Trouble With Barack's Economics

By Keith Schmitz

Though John Torinus, president of Serigraph and former Milwaukee Journal editor is a Republican, he is a very forward thinking and reasonable guy. We need more Republicans like him and in many ways his insight and foresight are admirable. He is a glass half full type of guy though sometimes you have to wonder about what is in the glass.

Republicans who went after Barack Obama’s remarkable speech, “A More Perfect Union,” from last week on race and religion, did it on the basis of race and religion. Torinus used his special expertise in business to dissect the speech.

The headline (though it might have been written by a copy writer) was instantly over the top – “Obama speech was full of anti-business rhetoric” – because Torinus goes off to pick out a couple of passages that were at the most three minutes out of the total 37 minute run time.

Right off the bat Torinus indicts the speech from an economic point of view as being divisive.

Well, this was the point. Obama in addressing our differences in race wanted to point out that it is our economic problems that in fact unify us. The GOP has been playing the race card for years to water down the political impact within the working and middle class by using the diversion of racial differences.

Then Torinus goes on to open up a rhetorical Burger King drive-thru by serving up one whopper after another in going after Obama’s statement that we have “"a corporate culture rife with inside dealing; questionable accounting practices and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many."

First, the word "rife" is not accurate, not even to describe Wall Street. As could have been pointed out during his time in this state, no Wisconsin corporate executive in recent memory has been charged with corruption.

Not unless we rule out Dick Strong. Of course not everyone on Wall Street is engaged in inside dealing, but we have more than enough of it that we now have the sub-prime debacle that is sending shock waves through our economy.

As for questionable accounting, with a few notorious exceptions, the business world is on the mountaintop compared to the funny money used in government accounting. Point in case: the crazy-quilt patches on the Wisconsin budget working its way through the Legislature.

If that wasn’t the case, we wouldn’t have Sarbanes-Oxley. As far as the favorite conservative bogey man – government – the budget is victim of too much money in the legislative process. Something the GOP wants to keep in the process.

Obama is right about the infestation of lobbyists in Washington, D.C., but it isn't just business interests that lobby the good senators. There are plenty of anti-business lobbyists there, too.

True. But the big money is being wielded by the business lobbyists. Why else do we have the watering down of our government food inspections, a carload of business welfare and legislation custom-made for an industry or even individual company? Look at the recent transaction where John McCain’s lobbyist friends pushed through an Air Force contract for European aircraft maker Airbus over domestic Boeing.

His stance against policies that "favor the few over the many" raises the issue of a growing disparity between the very rich and the balance of the country. While a case can be made for a more progressive tax system, it has to take into account that the top taxpayers already carry a hugely disproportionate share of the tax burden. The bottom third pays nothing or next to nothing. The poorest get money back from the government.

That one is a half-pound whopper. You have to go back to the days of the Robber Barons to find a time when wealth in this country has been so under taxed, especially not smart when we have a war to fight.

Not only are the poor hit up for taxes and sales taxes take a large bite out of their incomes, the statement that the “poor get money back from the government” is totally bogus when considering the shredding of the social safety net in this country. Most certainly health care costs and high fuel prices gobble up what ever benefits bestowed on these lucky duckies.

In addition, Wisconsin has higher combined corporate tax rates than in any developed country.

Where did that come from? The taxes corporations pay in this state have diminished over the years to the point where now Wisconsin ranks among the lowest ten states in corporate taxation. The tax hell that conservatives rail about was brought to you in part because of the tiny wedge in the overall state pie.

As he concludes, Torinus points out “Obama's philosophy on race and religion is unifying. His philosophy on economics is far from collaborative.”

Let’s keep in mind that the GOP has worked to flip out the race cards faster than a pit boss for the vary purpose of divide and conquer when it comes to economic reform.

The last thing corporations and other members of the upper class want is “a more perfect union.”

I’m not talking labor unions necessarily. But that would not be a bad thing either.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

by capper

Walker must have a distinct phobia when it comes to telling the truth. The news came out yesterday that his campaign is lying about his most recent commercial. The fallout is still coming in on that lie.

Today, the lies keep on flowing out of his mouth and keyboard. Walker did an "online chat" for JSOnline, in which he handpicked most of the questions to give himself softballs. He did let a few tougher questions through, which I am sure he thought he had the answers down pat. But his lies are pretty easy to observe to anyone paying attention.

One of the questions had to deal with transit. Here is the question, and Walker' response (emphasis mine):

Q: Emily Mullen of Milwaukee - You claim to be pro-transit, yet as County Executive you have presided over significant fare increases and crippling service cuts. In addition, while in the State Assembly you never voted to increase the State's support of transit. How do you reconcile your record with your alleged support of transit?

A: Scott Walker - Emily, When I came into office as County Executive, the state covered about 44% of the costs of the transit system and the county tax levy covered 14%. That is now 40% from the state while about 14% comes from the county tax levy. In the future, we need to control costs and get stable support from the state. In the Assembly, I voted for some increases in transit spending, but they were not always as much of an increase as some transit advocates wanted to spend. I don't claim to be pro- or anti- transit. I just tell you what I want to do with transit in the future. To control costs, I want to consolidate transit amongst the four systems in southeastern Wisconsin. To stabilize state support, I want to capture the growth in the CURRENT sales tax collected on automobile related sales and apply it to transit statewide. In this budget, that would be more than $100 million with about 60% coming back to the Milwaukee area.

As I have highlighted, Walker claims to be neither pro-transit nor anti-transit.

If he is truly not pro-transit, why did he film this commercial?




But he didn't do just that one commercial. He also has a web commercial that is even titled "Walker: Committed to Transit". I don't know about you, but that seems to me to be that he is pretty much claiming to be pro-transit.

He also spouts about some plan that he has to fix transit. A plan that would take the sales tax from everyone in the state, to just support our transit system. A plan that has been repeatedly proven to be a non-starter from day one. Yet he is hypocritical enough to accuse Senator Taylor of not being realistic about the plan.

But then again, remember he also claims not to be anti-transit. Then could he please explain why he is using such a poor business design of raising rates and cutting services. Does he think that he is actually doing anyone any favors. Or is he really trying to kill transit? After all, he is overseeing one of the few systems in the entire nation that hasn't seen a huge jump in ridership. In fact, due to his incompetence, Milwaukee buses are actually losing riders. And let us not forget that when he had a chance to approve a tax-neutral plan that would have boosted ridership, like it has elsewhere in the state and the country, Walker vetoed it.

He also claimed not to be anti-transit just one day after he cuts more routes.

In summary, Walker denies being pro-transit, but then puts out to commercials touting how he is pro-transit. Walker in the same sentence, denies being anti-transit, but then has given us six years of methodically trying to dismantle it.

Not only is Walker incompetent and a hypocrite, he is a lousy liar. And he is not even very good at his lying either.

The Clinton Ice Capades

By Keith Schmitz

This is s knee slapper. Pardon the pun.

Why are Hillary and her intermediaries trying to destroy Obama, going so far to laud John McCain while disdaining Barack?

On the condition of anonymity, the way a member of the DNC put it to Jake Tapper with ABC is that the Clinton Campaign is pursuing the Tonya Harding option.

It's up to you to cast the rest of this movie.

Bending the Facts to Fit Your Frame

by folkbum

(Note: This is long. You can skip to the paragraph starting "To sum up" if you just want the gist.)

Justice Louis Butler may have gotten the nickname "Loophole Louie" twenty or more years ago while a vigorous public defender. However, it seems pretty clear that Wisconsin's right wing is more intent on using the moniker to suggest that as a judge, Butler seeks any possible out for every criminal defendant; hence, you've been subjected to some of the most vile and misleading advertisements ever aired in this state, and you've got rightie bloggers tripping over themselves to prove that Butler is soft on crime. (This is a stupid measure for a Supreme Court Justice anyway; they hear few criminal cases and even then, the ones they hear are, by design, cases where the State may have overstepped its bounds. I want to know how well Butler follows the law, not whether he blindly favors the State.)

And that's the set-up for a significant blunder by my arch-nemesis, Owen at Boots and Sabers. Whether he found McCoy v. Court of Appeals of Wisconsin on his own, or had it handed to him by someone à la Copiergate as Mike Plaisted suspects, Owen has badly misread the case and includes some flat-out falsehoods in his discussion of it. And, though he was corrected on it yesterday, he includes no update or other information to indicate that yes, he blew it.

McCoy is a case that Butler argued in front of the Supreme Court of the United States. (Number of cases Butler's opponent has argued in front of SCOTUS: 0.) At issue was not actually anything to do with Ellis T. McCoy, who was convicted of abduction and sexual assault and sentenced to 12 years. McCoy wanted to appeal that conviction, but, being poor, needed a public defender to do it--and that PD was Butler. Here's how the SCOTUS ruling describes the situation:

After studying the case, the attorney advised him that further appellate proceedings would be completely useless and that he had three options: He could voluntarily dismiss the appeal; he could go forward without a lawyer; or he could authorize the attorney to file a brief that would present the strongest arguments the lawyer could make in support of the appeal but would also advise the court of the lawyer's conclusion that the appeal is frivolous. Appellant selected the third option.

Appellant's counsel then prepared a brief that can fairly be characterized as schizophrenic. In his role as an advocate for appellant, counsel stated the facts, advanced four arguments for reversal, and prayed that the conviction be set aside. In his role as an officer of the court, counsel stated that further appellate proceedings on behalf of his client "would be frivolous and without any arguable merit," and prayed that he be permitted to withdraw.

So here's "Loophole Louie," explaining that there is no loophole big enough for McCoy to get through. (Note that the "schizophrenic" nature of the brief--called an Anders brief, after a previous SCOTUS ruling--is what is required by law; there was no "option four" that offered a straight appeal.)

Now you might wonder how a case in which Butler explicitly told his client he had no chance on appeal and explicitly told the court that his client had no chance on appeal would fit the right-wing frame of Butler's always working to put sexual predators back on the street. The fact is, this case doesn't fit that frame at all, and it takes some serious bending of the facts--and outright lies--for Owen to make it part of the "Loophole Louie" narrative.

Consider: Owen calls his post, "Butler Spent Taxpayer Dollars to Try to Enable More Frivolous Appeals." Owen should perhaps get some kind of award for Most Conservative Buzzwords In A Single Post Title, but set aside the marvel of engineering that had to happen to achieve that. Instead, consider how bold is the lie contained in that sentence. Yes, Butler's appeal to the SCOTUS was paid for by taxpayers--we all chip in to pay for (a shrinking and inadequate number of) public defenders who ensure that the poor can get the same vigorous defense that those of us who can afford attorneys get. But here's the lie: Butler was not seeking the ability to file frivolous appeals. Butler, in fact, wanted the opposite--he wanted off McCoy's case because McCoy had no chance of winning. But by law--well, by a rule of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which has the force of law--he could not get off the case.

Butler could not get off the case, that is, without filing a brief explaining why he thought the appeal was frivolous. Under SCOWI rules, it is not enough for a PD to say, "this appeal is without merit," the PD must enumerate the reasons why. Butler did not do that enumeration--thinking about McCoy's 6th and 14th Amendment rights--and SCOWI sent him back to do it again. So Butler appealed--but he appealed not McCoy's case (which would have been frivolous), but the SCOWI rule.

The appellate courts and SCOWI upheld the SCOWI rule (surprise!), but ultimately SCOTUS decided it was worth looking at. This is where Owen crosses the border between fact and fiction again. Owen writes, "Butler took a case he knew to be wholly frivolous all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court." This is an outrageous lie, and, if I were Butler, I would consider libel action. Yes, Butler knew McCoy's case was frivolous, but he wasn't arguing McCoy's case in front of SCOTUS. Butler was arguing the constitutionality of requiring defense counsel to explain why a defendant's case is without merit--and that was not "wholly frivolous"! SCOTUS doesn't take frivolous cases in the first place; in the second, three of eight Justices (Justice Kennedy sat this one out for some reason not explained in the decision) dissented and agreed with Butler. I have to say, I hold a lot of sympathy for that position--in their words, "Not only does Wisconsin's Rule impinge upon the right to counsel, but--contrary to our admonition that 'there can be no equal justice where the kind of appeal a man enjoys "depends on the amount of money he has," '--it does so in manner that ensures the poor will not have 'the same rights and opportunities on appeal' as the rich."

In other words, a private attorney can drop a case because she knows it's hopeless and simply walk away. A public defender cannot merely walk away, though--he must also file the brief that enumerates why the case is hopeless. (The majority held that it may have been unfair, but it did not place an undue burden on anyone.)

It's this inability to walk away that led to an additional egregious error in Owen's original post. Owen quotes from the transcript of oral arguments, but leaves out some key context; I've bolded the parts Owen omitted:

QUESTION: Assuming you just applied Anders as written and you don't have this additional requirement of a lawyer explaining why he thinks it's frivolous, do you think the normal Anders case in which the lawyer files an Anders brief, in which he makes the--identifies the arguable arguments on behalf of his client and then says, but I think they're frivolous, do you think that takes it out of the adversarial process?

MR. BUTLER: The one thing that Anders did--I do not. I think the one thing that Anders did--

QUESTION: You think that is the same advocacy that the rich person that the Chief Justice mentioned would get? [. . .] It is the same advocacy that the rich client would get? Do you think his client is going to go in and make some arguable things, saying yes, but I think it's frivolous and I'd like to withdraw?

MR. BUTLER: No. [. . .] I can't imagine a client paying a lawyer to go in and argue the case as totally frivolous.

QUESTION: What we've got is a case where the paying client, if he's got a conscientious lawyer, would say to him, you're going to waste your money. I'm telling you that in advance. It's not worth $5,000 to file this. Of course, if you want to throw your money away, I'll file your papers for you.

MR. BUTLER: That's correct.

QUESTION: What you're saying is that the poor defendant is entitled to have the state waste the same amount of money.

MR. BUTLER: That's correct.

Owen, quoting just the last part, comments (my italics), "Justice Scalia asked if he thought it was appropriate for state-paid lawyers to file frivolous appeals." Wrong! The context makes it clear that we're not talking about the permissibility of meritless appeals. We're talking about the "additional requirement" that Butler was trying to get out of. When Butler says "That's correct," he's not stating his own opinion, but rather he's confirming Scalia's reading of the Wisconsin rule.

Owen does the same thing again, quoting an exchange between Butler and Chief Justice Rehnquist, leaving out key context and making it sound like Butler is arguing that defense counsel "should have greater latitude to argue frivolous cases" (again, my italics). But reading the very next question and answer, it's clear that Butler is arguing no such thing:

QUESTION: Yes, but you would agree, I take it, that there are some appeals, I don't know how large a class it is, that even the best lawyer in the world has virtually no chance of getting--of succeeding on; whereas, it's not nearly as easy to evaluate that in the trial situation. Everybody agrees that abandoning a client or saying I think your defense is frivolous, therefore I won't represent you in trial, it just can't be done. It isn't done. It isn't a problem.

MR. BUTLER: I understand your concern, Justice Rehnquist. That's why we are defending the Anders decision, because Anders came down with a compromise, that allowed the attorney on the one hand to try to remain that advocate while, on the other hand, recognizing the ethical duty of the lawyer not to knowingly file a frivolous appeal and pass it off as a meritorious.

Tell me, how can you possibly get from that the idea that Butler believes appeals are allowed to be as frivolous and meritless as they can be? It seems to me that Butler recognizes clearly that lawyers have the responsibility not to file frivolous appeals, and he is not in any way asking SCOTUS for permission to file them.

To sum up: Owen finds (or is given) a case Butler argued in front of the Supreme Court of the United States. Owen, believing the frame that Justice Butler is "Loophole Louie," looks for (or has pointed out to him) parts of the oral argument transcript that can be mis-read to support that frame. He then concocts a number of false statements about both the case in question and the arguments that Butler advanced in the case to claim that Butler's appeal was both frivolous and in favor of further extending the rights of defendants to be frivolous.

Now, I'm not a lawyer, and neither is Owen. But I can read the plain language of the decision and of the oral arguments. It is clear to me, as it should be to anyone, lawyer or not (I'm looking at you, Dad29), that Owen is just flat wrong here, all the way around.

Taxes, Lies and Videotape

by capper

Walker launched a new ad recently. He's been running a lot of new ads lately. It must be due to all that special interest money he is getting from Madison. And here it was the hypocrite Walker who kept saying that Senator Taylor was the one that would be getting big bucks. Like I said, what a hypocrite.

Back to the ad. It's well done with a diverse group of people, and Walker, talking about how they believe in Milwaukee, and how they believe in Scott Walker. This has been a common theme in political ads locally. (I wonder if Charlie Sykes will be getting on Walker for that ideological plagiarism, like he did on Obama.) Of course, I would be glad to say that too, if I were an actor and was being paid to say that.

Xoff has a detailed look at how Walker and his campaign got caught up in the lie regarding this commercial and how it was made. He even goes as far as to point out where we have seen on of the hired actors before, and how this sort of chicanery appears to be a Republican forte.

So, Walker is lying about who is getting big money and he is lying about the commercial that his special interest monies have paid for. But that is not the only lie we see Walker trying to peddle to us. His whole tax thing turns out to be a farce as well.

Walker has been promoting Family Care. He's been promoting it a lot. Let's ignore the fact that it is a state mandate that every county goes to Family Care, which is basically a plan based on the HMO-type of administrative costs. Or as pa capper said, and remember he is a self-proclaimed neocon, "Walker wants to charge us more so that people can die."

Walker boasts how it will supposedly eliminate the waiting list of developmentally delayed and physically disabled people who are in need of services. What it will most likely do, is just bump that waiting list along the line, as there are currently not enough service providers to meet that high level of demand.

What Walker has not been telling us is the cost. In a report to the County Board, Corey Hoze, Director of the Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services lays out the progress of the transition to Family Care. I received a copy of this report and have scanned the parts of the report that deals with the cost and some of the ramifications that Family Care will have on Milwaukee County. With a big thanks to James Wigderson on the technical advice, here are the links to page7, page 8 and page 9 of the report. Here is the pertinent part to cost:

...expenditures in year one would decrease by approximately $79.2 million, revenues would decrease by $80 million, and tax levy would increase by nearly $800,000 compared to DSD's 2008 Adopted Budget. The estimated tax levy increase is approximately $5.4 million in the second year and $5.8 million in the third year. These gaps do not include the additional tax levy required for the eligibility function as described below.

As you can see, Walker is poised to add $12 million dollars to the tax levy, just for this one program. $12 million dollars in new taxes from a guy who brags about holding taxes down. And not only is he planning on raising taxes, he is planning on giving us less services for the extra money we have to pay:

The budgetary limitations are due, in part, to the continued funding of discretionary programs for persons with disabilities primarily funded with Community Aids and tax levy. These programs include advocacy, supported living options, work and day programs, respite, recreation, transportation, and services to persons in need of short-term support to live independently in the community. Currently, approximately 700 individuals with disabilities are served by DSD through these locally funded programs under purchase of service contracts. It is estimated that 470 of these individuals may be eligible for Family Care services. Therefore, if funding for these programs became unavailable,participation in the Family Care program could permit these individuals to continue receiving services. However, as many as 230 of the individuals currently receiving these services may not be eligible for Family Care and would have services discontinued if funding became unavailable.

In addition to the above potential service reductions, the emergency shelter care programs may also need to be reduced or eliminated.

To recap, we will be paying more in taxes and getting less in services. Not only that, but now we will have hundreds of individuals that could be in serious trouble and a danger to themselves and/or to others, if they don't continue to receive the support services they need. I have already shown the cost to society of having untreated mental health issues and alcohol and drug treatment issues go untreated.

I wonder how all this fits into Walker's Safe, Affordable and Pride malarkey?

Ode To Spring

by capper

Here's an oldie I remember my family saying every year about this time of the year:

Spring has sprung.
The grass has riz.
I wonder what the hell
All that white stuff is.

One Bright Side To The Winter

by capper

As I mentioned before, the past month has been pretty rough on the capper family.

There was one shining moment. Although it may seem trivial, I'm sure even Patrick at Badger Blogger would admit it was special. Like Patrick, my wife and I enjoy feeding and watching the birds, squirrels, deer and other critters that inhabit our neck of the woods.

After seeing the garage, and feeling sorry for myself for a couple of hours, I made myself get up and go out to fill all the feeders. SIDENOTE: To show how crazy we are, we have a squirrel feeder, three feeders just for the goldfinches (they love their thistle seed), a suet feeder, a bell feeder, three feeders for mixed seed and three feeders for sunflower seeds. We also have a ground feeder and a small trough for corn to keep the deer, raccoons and turkeys from the other feeders. In the spring we will put out our oriole feeder, our hummingbird feeder, and two other feeders that Santa gave us.

Anywho, as I was filling the feeders, the birds, who we hadn't been able to feed for three weeks, were rather hungry, and became quite noisy and active, encouraging me to move faster. As I was doing the sunflower seed feeders, two chickadees were bouncing from branch to branch just a few feet above me, chiding me that I still wasn't going fast enough. Kiddingly, I grabbed a handful of sunflower seeds and held my hand out saying, "OK, if you're than hungry, come and get it."

To my surprise, one of them made several passes at my hand, but veered off at the last moment. It got so close I could feel the wind from its wings. The second one was a bit braver. It took one pass before coming back and settling on my index finger. It looked at me for about ten seconds, gave out a series of chirps, took a seed and flew back up to the tree to eat.

Like I said, it was a trivial moment in the grand scheme of things, but it was enough to bring a smile to my face and give me enough strength to carry on. To have such a small creature put enough faith in me to trust me to eat out of my hand, well, that did a lot to help me pick myself up, emotionally speaking.

Next, I'm going to work on the flying squirrels we got up there...

My Continuing Discontent-One Month Later

by capper

I told you about the winter of my discontent that started a month ago. Since then, my vehicle was extracted from the garage and taken to the body shop. The damages to the vehicle came to $6,000. The body shop is having problems getting the necessary parts shipped to it. It took over two weeks to get the roof in. It has been put in, and is being painted. Unfortunately, the interior part of the roof (the liner, etc) has still not come in yet.

In extracting the vehicle from the garage, they had to literally pull the overhead door out with a front end loader. They were then able to prop up the part resting on the roof of my car and pull it out without doing any further damage---to the vehicle. The garage didn't come out as well.

To add to our discontent, the secondary roof over our trailer had its support beams crack. The roof is bowed pretty good, but at least it didn't collapse. The guy who plows our road came and shoveled it off before it got worse. (Yes, we did provide recompense for his risking his life and three hours of his day for us.)

Last weekend I got to go up there for the first time since the collapse of my garage. The weekend after the incident, the weather was crappy. The weekend after that we needed to get my wife's car fixed, thanks to the multitude of potholes.

It was a rough weekend. I went up by myself, as that my beautiful bride had to pull a shift of mandatory overtime on Saturday. We decided that I should go as that we needed to see what we were going to have to contend with. Here is a picture of the side of the garage:

This is what I got to see first when I pulled into the driveway:

As you can see, the entire side has caved in. Fortunately, we got most of the important stuff out before we had left. Unfortunately, we didn't get one major thing out:

There was so much snow and ice, I couldn't get anything safely out of there. In fact, just after I took the picture of the Lambeauni, another piece of the roof cave in and a part landed about five feet away from me. Needless to say, I got the hell out of there as quickly as I could. I'm not going back in until the snow and ice have melted.

My wife and I got up there again this weekend. It looks pretty much the same. The snow has gone down only about an inch, but the ice is a lot worse. Also, a couple more boards have landed on the Lambeauni, from what I could tell.

From the "misery loves company" file, the local paper reports that a number of buildings, almost all them bigger, newer and more expensive than mine also fell from the weight of this year's record-breaking snowfall. These include a potato storage building at Anthony Farms, one of the largest potato growers in the state. They lost 1500 hundredweight of potatoes and it will cost them half a million to replace the building. A grocery store in Wausau and the Conservation Club in Iola also had their roofs cave in. About five miles from our place, a farmer had his brand new barn go down.

The Internet MUST Be Regulated--NOW!!!!

by folkbum

Remember back when the FEC wanted to regulate political speech on the internet? There were these fears that anonymous groups, some even paid for by lobbyists or corporations or campaigns, would create content and ads and videos that could undermine the democratic process. I remember that fight--I followed that one closely and I was initially relieved when the commissioners decided that speech on blogs and so forth was as protected as any newspaper or other news outlet that offered editorial content.

Well, I have changed my mind. I have seen one of those anonymous videos, and it is so awe-inspiring, so overwhelming, and so insidious, that it needs to be banned. I do not know how anyone can watch it and not be moved to vote for McCain.

Quite simply, it is so powerful that I am willing to surrender the autonomy I have on this blog over to the FEC just to be rid of this thing. You can watch it below, but I warn you--it is nearly too much to handle.

Seen on a sign about town today

by folkbum

CALL AHEAD TO RESERVE YOUR EASTER POLISH

And silly me; I thought you were supposed to dye the eggs.

Simple Answers to Simple Questions

by folkbum

Rick Esenberg asks, "But who's right?" The simple answer: Not Jessica McBride.* See iT and MP for the complicated answers.

This has been another edition of Simple Answers to Simple Questions.

*Could be paraphrased as Not Patrick McIlheran.

Walker Again Refuses To Improve Transit System

by capper

UPDATE: The county board overrode Walker's veto by a 16-3 vote. At least someone in County government is listening to the people.

We have seen time and time again that Walker does not want to help keep the Milwaukee County Transit System keep its wheels on the road. He raises fares and slashes routes (more cuts are coming this weekend), and then wonders why ridership is down, while ever-increasing gas prices is producing a boom in every other major metropolitan area. He has also fiddled around and did his usual grandstanding on working with others, putting $91.5 million at risk of being lost forever.

Now, today, Walker has vetoed the plan to put bike racks on the buses. This is after he has stated that he was for it as long as local tax dollars weren't used. He even tried to use the bike racks as a bargaining chip to get Milwaukee County out of a lawsuit that he created with his no bid contract to tear down the Courthouse Annex.

An email from Shea Schachameyer, of the Bicycle Federation of WI, sent out this email:

As I described on the phone, the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors have the opportunity to override the veto that Scott Walker made today on behalf of the Bike Racks on Buses program. The program, which has been approved multiple times by the Milwaukee County Supervisors has had overwhelming support from Milwaukee residents: we gathered over 17000 signatures and have letters of support from Congresswoman Moore, Mayor Barrett, the SE Regional Director of Health and Family Services, Robert Harris, and many others. In short, the program will:

• Increase ridership
• Expand service area
• Increase the frequency of use

This program will not be another burden for MCTS to pay for. MCTS is in the process of applying for Federal funding to cover 80% of the capitol costs and we are working with them to raise local sponsorship dollars to cover the remaining 20% or $130,000.

I apologize for the short notice, but hope that you will support this program and in doing so will call Chairman Holloway, advising him to support the override of Walker's veto before the County Board Meeting, tomorrow morning at 9am.

Thank you!

Sincerely, Shea--

Shea Schachameyer
Bicycle Federation of WI
(414)431-1761 shea@bfw.org

(Please note: The email was slightly modified to remove Ms. Schachameyer's personal phone number.)

Ms. Schachameyer also sent along an attachment of a pdf, which I unfortunately cannot find on the web, and currently have no way of posting or linking to. (If someone can help, that would be appreciated.)

The attachment was of a newsletter that outlines some of the benefits that other cities across Wisconsin and across the country have enjoyed from putting bike racks on their buses. These benefits include increased ridership, expanded service areas, more frequent riders, better health of the community (both physically and economically), and a cleaner environment. It also provides federal and local studies that support these assertions.

For further background, there is this site that provides some of the history of the work of the BFWI, in regards to this issue.

So, as Ms. Schachameyer asks, please call County Board Supervisor Lee Holloway, and your own county board supervisor, and urge them to again override another one of Walker's mean-spirited, short-sighted, harmful vetoes, and to follow the will of the people of Milwaukee County.

This would not raise our taxes, and it would help the transit system stay at least at its current level, if not even improve. One just has to wonder: Why would Walker, who claims to support transit, and had at one time supported it, now be against it?

ADDENDUM: Here is the beginning of the pdf report from BFWI:

Efficient and affordable public transportation systems are essential to successful cities. Communities that invest in public transportation realize enhanced development and prosperity. According to the American Public Transportation Association, every $10 million invested in capital projects yields $30 million in business sales. Milwaukee is in need of economic development and more jobs--investment in public transportation can bring these changes. As outlined by Southeastern Wisconsin's Regional Planning Commission (SEWRPC), the Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS) is potentially facing severe service cuts which would result in "a significantly smaller transit system...operating with shorter service hours and with less frequent service…, and [which would] offer less of an alternative mode of travel to the automobile" by the year 2010. Yet, despite this dreary forecast, it is possible for MCTS to gain economic stability as other transit agencies have done across the country. Bike racks on buses are an affordable and effective capital improvement to invest in. In fact, Florida transit agency, LYNX, found that for one-third the cost of a new bus they could reach more customers with bike racks and expand access to transit from ¼ mile walk buffer to a 1 mile bike buffer, allowing them to reach more customers.

Currently in the United States, there are over 300 transit agencies which, when combined, operate over 75,000 buses. 40,000 of these buses--more than 50%--are equipped with bike racks. Furthermore, out of Wisconsin's twenty municipal transit agencies, 40% have bike racks installed on their buses while and additional 15% plan to within the next six months. Unfortunately, it appears Milwaukee is not only falling behind on a national standard, it is falling behind on what has become a statewide standard as well.

Again, it makes one wonder how Walker can even keep a straight face when he claims that he supports the transit system.

Happy 5th Anniversary Iraq Invasion -- What No Party?

By Keith Schmitz

Today, if you did the labor of visiting the conservative local blogs you'd find they all one thing in common.

No comments on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq Invasion.

What? This of course is not the worst blunder in American foreign policy history because it's creators wanted to go there from day one they got into office.

Nevertheless, up until recently the blogs on the right prayed for this, cheer led this, backed their Jethro Bodine channeling president and thrilled when ever bogus "evidence" of the non-existent WMD's surfaced. Ah, the good old days of yesteryear.

Ah, the invasion that would rid of the "threat" of Saddam Hussein, that would create a paradise for the Iraqi people, that would be paid for by oil revenues.

The Iraq invasion. Now our brethren on the right treat you like an orphan to be abandoned on the door step.

Only problem is we are left with the bleeding from our treasury, a generation of soldiers who have to live with their personal nightmares and the families of those who didn't make it living without fathers, mothers, siblings children.

But we do have this:

ABC’s Good Morning America aired an interview with Vice President Cheney on the war. During the segment, Cheney flatly told White House correspondent Martha Raddatz that he doesn’t care about the American public’s views on the war:

CHENEY: On the security front, I think there’s a general consensus that we’ve made major progress, that the surge has worked. That’s been a major success.

RADDATZ: Two-third of Americans say it’s not worth fighting.

CHENEY: So?

RADDATZ So? You don’t care what the American people think?

CHENEY: No. I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls.

Wow!

Hillary: I'm Losing, Change the Rules

Update: Listen to Hillary on Michigan: Pathetic.

After agreeing not to campaign in Florida and Michigan last year, Hillary Clinton now wants the elections, such as they were, to count.

From the Miami Herald:

Trailing Democratic rival Barack Obama in delegates and running out of options, Hillary Clinton's campaign on Tuesday launched a two-pronged attack in Florida.In Fort Lauderdale, supporters brandished petitions and called for the Jan. 29 primary -- which she won -- to count toward delegates.

If you're losing the game, change the rules, the goalposts, and make a new game.
Reminds me of Bush on the Iraq War for which Hillary voted, though she still denies that she did so.

From Time:

The Pledge Clinton Signed

WHEREAS, Over a year ago, the Democratic National Committee established a 2008 nominating calendar;

WHEREAS, this calendar honors the racial, ethnic, economic and geographic diversity of our party and our country;

WHEREAS, the DNC also honored the traditional role of retail politics early in the nominating process, to insure that money alone will not determine our presidential nominee;

WHEREAS, it is the desire of Presidential campaigns, the DNC, the states and the American people to bring finality, predictability and common sense to the nominating calendar.

THEREFORE, I, [Name], Democratic Candidate for President, pledge I shall not campaign or participate in any state which schedules a presidential election primary or caucus before Feb. 5, 2008, except for the states of Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina, as "campaigning" is defined by rules and regulations of the DNC.

RIP, Arthur C. Clarke

by folkbum

You can stop holding your breath: Esenberg speaks!

by folkbum

Seriously. Make Plaisted was about to turn blue. Luckily, he can let it all out in a fit of laughter. The collective liberal-Cheddarspherean impatience was prompted by Rick Esenberg's initial silence over the Michael Gableman Supreme Court ad I discussed here over the weekend; Esenberg's response came last night.

Sometimes I feel bad for Rick; he's a genuinely nice man and certainly one of the smartest people on the conservative side of the blogging aisle. But he's also their resident legal expert, the one whom the rest of the conservative Cheddarsphere counts on to set the tone for discussion of legal issues. That's a lot of pressure. Moreover, while he continues to insist that he has not endorsed anyone in the present Supreme Court campaign, he's been so in the bag for anti-Louis Butler forces that we pro-Butler bloggers find his neutrality dance laughable--some more colorfully so than others. But reading between the lines, I also don't think he cares much for Gableman, but of course he cannot say so--because of that very in-the-bagness.

In short, I do not envy him his position.

Esenberg does not defend the Gableman ad (the only defense I have seen came from Brian Fraley, who in the process seems to decide that defendants should not have defense attorneys; for his sake, I hope he's never arrested), and in fact uses some strong terms to denounce it:

I am very disappointed that the campaign ran that ad. If the point of the ad is that criminal defense lawyers are "unsafe" as judges, it works against one of the presuppositions of our adversarial system of justice (albeit a presupposition that the general public tends to be uncomfortable with). [. . .] I have nothing to do with the Gableman campaign, but I would have rather strongly counseled against this ad.

I have no problem with that. But before condemning the Gableman ad, Esenberg first has to take a detour and get het up about a pro-Butler ad (Wigderson calls this the "Bullock Rule"):

The Greater Wisconsin Committee has put out an ad criticizing Gableman for not obtaining sufficiently weighty sentences as a prosecutor and pronouncing insufficiently weighty sentences as a judge. I haven't caught any bloggers on the left objecting to the ad which would have made them all apoplectic had it been directed at the incumbent. How can we possibly tell whether these defendants deserved more? You can't assess the propriety of an outcome without some background. The disingenuous nature of the ad is magnified by the fact that the Greater Wisconsin Committee--funded by trial lawyers, unions and casinos--has absolutely no interest in electing someone who is "tough on crime.

Yes, you read that right: Esenberg is taking a group to task for making soft-on-crime ads. Now, he did criticize the Coalition for America's Families (once, twice) for their Butler's-soft-on-crime ads, which is commendable; but when he did so, Esenberg criticized their accuracy--he did not damn them for existing at all, as he seems to here with the GWC ad.

Moreover, Esenberg does not note that the soft/tough-on-crime conversation was started by Gableman and his enablers at CAF and the WMC. It seems to me that if Gableman is going to tout his own tough-on-crime credentials and disparage his opponent on that front, he opens himself up to criticism in that vein. When he claims to have prosecuted arson, it seems reasonable for his opposition to point out that he prosecuted exactly one arsonist who was acquitted at trial. Or that for all his scary sex-offender talk about Butler, Gableman as a judge seemed to go pretty light on the sex offenders.

But what really made me laugh--that great exhalation of the breath we'd been holding--was the last part of Esenberg's criticism of the GWC ad, about its "disingenuous nature." Puh-lease. Is he trying to tell me that Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce--pushing the Butler's-soft-on-crime schtick--has as its primary consideration the handful of criminal cases before the Court every term? Does he think the the big-business money-men behind CAF (like industrialist Terry Kohler) are most concerned about sex predators? Riiiight. The response from WMC defenders is always that WMC wants safe places to do business. Does Esenberg think that union members, casinos, and plaintiff's attorneys would rather have crime-infested places to live and work, that they don't have as much interest as WMC in safety and security? Come on, Rick--that's just ridiculous.

MORE: Pundit Nation.

Gun Ownership -- You Know What I'm Driving at

By Keith Schmitz

As a dovetail to 3rd Way's post below, I read a great analogy but it is driving me nut where I saw it so pardon me to the originator.

The gun lovers think they are very clever when they bring up that cars kill people just like guns, so why aren't we trying to limit access to cars as we are with guns.

Nevermind that the intent of a gun is to maim and kill (and get your jollies shooting and listening to it go off), while cars have 100,000 uses and the taking of life is not at all the primary intent.

So be it. Let's treat guns like we treat cars. So therefore a gun owner would have to be licensed and ownership recorded, a gun would have to have a traceable serial number and every time that gun changes hands there must be a transaction recorded with the state.

Oh, and the ower of the gun would have to carry insurance in case someone is accidentally injured or killed by the gun.

Works for me.

Similarities And Differences

by capper

Boy, oh boy, I sure have made my share of blunders lately. But as I sat back and thought of my mistakes, and the lessons to be learned from them, something else struck me. I have some similarities to Scott Walker. I also realized that there were three major areas where we differed.

Walker and I have both made mistakes and gaffes. Those are the similarities.

The first difference is that my mistakes didn't allow criminals loose in the streets, deprived some of the freedom of travel, allowed mentally ill people to die in squalor, or prevented people from seeking justice in the courts system.

The second difference is that I've learned from my mistakes. I've learned to check my information, and to make sure that I have it noted correctly. I will be trying to avoid making the same mistakes, year after year after year, like Walker has done.

But the biggest and most striking difference between Walker and I--I've admitted to my mistakes, and didn't try to foist the blame on anyone else. Nor have I've tried to take the credit for another person's or persons' work.

Iraq -- 5 Years Past and Still Clueless

By Keith Schmitz

We beat Germany and Japan, two of the world's greatest powers in three years and eight months.

We have been at it in Iraq for five years with no end in sight.

So riddle me this. George Bush keeps talking about victory in Iraq. John McCain is running on victory in Iraq (my friends).

My question is, has victory ever been defined? Don't you think that with all of the money that has been stuffed down that rat hole and all of the lives wasted of our soldiers and their families and of the the people in Iraq, shouldn't there be some definition of what in the world victory is?

And I'm not talking about some vague generalities but a hard, take it to the bank definition.

Or is it Bush (make that Cheney) really don't want us out of Iraq kind of like the endless war in 1984, but are banking on the blind support of their followers not to beg the question.

UPDATE -- Ten hours later and none of the best and brightest in the rightwing cheddarsphere have stepped up with a definition of victory in Iraq.

Founding Fathers and Gun Safety

By 3rd Way

The SCOTUS review of the DC gun ban tomorrow should be interesting. While learning about the coming debate I came across something I did not know. Gun safety was not as foreign to the founding fathers as some would like us to believe.

A Massachusetts law of 1786 provided that within the city of Boston, it was unlawful to keep loaded "fire-arms, or any bomb, granade, or other shell... in any house, outhouse, barn, stable, store, ware-house, shop, or other building...."

Hopefully the current Supreme Court has as much common sense as the first law makers of this great nation and recognizes that fire arms are dangerous and should be subjected to reasonable regulation.

How Concerned?

By 3rd Way

Our Chairman of the Federal Reserve recently testified in front of Congress regarding the state of our economy. He voiced "concern" about it's health. We should all be concerned.

Robert Reich recently pointed us to the commentary of Marriner S. Eccles who served as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Chairman of the Federal Reserve from November, 1934 to February, 1948. In his book "Beckoning Frontiers" (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1951) he gave his view of what caused the Depression. Reich highlights the eerie similarities with the problems our economy is currently facing, and the problems that preceded the depression.

As mass production has to be accompanied by mass consumption, mass consumption, in turn, implies a distribution of wealth -- not of existing wealth, but of wealth as it is currently produced -- to provide men with buying power equal to the amount of goods and services offered by the nation s economic machinery. Instead of achieving that kind of distribution, a giant suction pump had by 1929-30 drawn into a few hands an increasing portion of currently produced wealth. This served them as capital accumulations. But by taking purchasing power out of the hands of mass consumers, the savers denied to themselves the kind of effective demand for their products that would justify a reinvestment of their capital accumulations in new plants. In consequence, as in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit ran out, the game stopped.

That is what happened to us in the twenties. We sustained high levels of employment in that period with the aid of an exceptional expansion of debt outside of the banking system. This debt was provided by the large growth of business savings as well as savings by individuals, particularly in the upper-income groups where taxes were relatively low. Private debt outside of the banking system increased about fifty per cent. This debt, which was at high interest rates, largely took the form of mortgage debt on housing, office, and hotel structures, consumer installment debt, brokers' loans, and foreign debt. The stimulation to spending by debt-creation of this sort was short-lived and could not be counted on to sustain high levels of employment for long periods of time. Had there been a better distribution of the current income from the national product -- in other words, had there been less savings by business and the higher-income groups and more income in the lower groups -- we should have had far greater stability in our economy. Had the six billion dollars, for instance, that were loaned by corporations and wealthy individuals for stock-market speculation been distributed to the public as lower prices or higher wages and with less profits to the corporations and the well-to-do, it would have prevented or greatly moderated the economic collapse that began at the end of 1929.

The time came when there were no more poker chips to be loaned on credit. Debtors thereupon were forced to curtail their consumption in an effort to create a margin that could be applied to the reduction of outstanding debts. This naturally reduced the demand for goods of all kinds and brought on what seemed to be overproduction, but was in reality underconsumption when judged in terms of the real world instead of the money world. This, in turn, brought about a fall in prices and employment.

Unemployment further decreased the consumption of goods, which further increased unemployment, thus closing the circle in a continuing decline of prices. Earnings began to disappear, requiring economies of all kinds in the wages, salaries, and time of those employed. And thus again the vicious circle of deflation was closed until one third of the entire working population was unemployed, with our national income reduced by fifty per cent, and with the aggregate debt burden greater than ever before, not in dollars, but measured by current values and income that represented the ability to pay. Fixed charges, such as taxes, railroad and other utility rates, insurance and interest charges, clung close to the 1929 level and required such a portion of the national income to meet them that the amount left for consumption of goods was not sufficient to support the population.

Reich does not think we are heading into a depression, but he does not sugar coat the state of our economy like some commenters on the right have. If I was advising a presidential candidate I would not play up promises of hope and good economic times ahead. If our next president over promises during their current campaign, he/she will serve a single term. If I was advising someone on who to vote for I would suggest the young guy supported by Paul Volcker, Reagan's choice for Chairman of the Federal Reserve, not the old guy that said "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should, I've got Greenspan's book". Some really smart people think the easy money policies of Greenspan helped lead us into this mess. I agree.

Wish a Wisconsin Soldier Happy Birthday

by folkbum

From the ol' inbox:

My good friend Carol has a son in Iraq that will celebrate his 24th birthday on April 7, 2008. She wants to shower him with a ton of cards. The cost is a card and a regular postage stamp. Would you like to help out?

Cpl Dan Sutyak
2/24 Fox Co., 1st Platoon
UNIT 43505
FPO AP 96426-3505

Dan is a native of Milwaukee WI, graduate of St. Gregory the Great and Hamilton High School. He is married and has an infant daughter. Please feel free to forward this message to people you think might be interested.

How do your pants not burst into flames for this?

by folkbum

Then the [Gableman] ad shifts gears, saying, "Louis Butler worked to put criminals on the street," followed by a picture of [Justice Louis] Butler next to a grainy mug shot of convicted child molester Reuben Lee Mitchell. The ad says Mitchell was convicted of raping an 11-year-old girl with learning disabilities. "Butler found a loophole; Mitchell went on to molest another child," it concludes.

What the ad doesn't say is that Butler was Mitchell's public defender--not a judge--on his appeal. He got the case overturned, but the state Supreme Court reinstated the conviction. Mitchell committed the later crime after serving his sentence, according to Gableman's campaign.

I mean, we all got to know Mark Graul (Gableman's most visible campaign hack) as a skunk and an Abramoff-loving sleaze-bucket from his work with Mark Green and Annette Ziegler. But to suggest, as Graul does, that this ad is fair is just about as clear a lie as you can get without actually having to whittle your nose back down to size. I mean, "fair" is a subjective term, and Graul's perspective on the race probably skews whatever sensibilities didn't get bought off from him when he worked for the Republicans in Congress.

But Graul also suggested it was accurate. When I say, "I ate a sandwich for dinner and the sun went down," I'm being, I suppose, accurate, only insofar as I don't intend for you to think that my eating a sandwich caused the sunset. But my concern for your accurate sense of my meal-eating in relation to nightfall would cause me never to say such a dumb thing, because I know that it leaves an inaccurate impression. As does this ad. As does "Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained," to borrow the old joke.

Seriously. How do you make this ad and face your wife and children in the morning? More: Mathias has the ad and a long, thoughtful response. iT points to the AP version of the story, which all but calls Gableman and Graul liars to their faces. iT also reminds us that Gableman is soft on crime. And the Brawler doesn't much care for Graul, either.

EVEN MORE: Plaisted on the race card.

ALSO: Butler's campaign.

Senator Taylor's First TV Ad

by capper

Well, you had to know I was going to post this:





Please note the articles being cited. Walker has none, just his own delusional paranoia. Also note, outside of Belling and McIlheran and Badger Blogger, I don't know of anyone local endorsing Walker. I'm sure there are some, but why doesn't he note them?

Some points of interest, that I wasn't aware of, was that Senator Taylor is being endorsed by Governor Jim Doyle (I did know that), U.S. Senators Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl, U.S. Representative Gwen Moore, and Mayor Tom Barrett. She is also endorsed by the Milwaukee County Deputy Sheriff's Association.

The company that put together Senator Taylor's ad was the same group that did the Fair Wisconsin ads. The company that did Walker's ads was the same company that did Steve Forbes ads, and they're based in Chicago. (Local companies must not be good enough for Walker. Way to support your county, Scott!)

CORRECTION: As noted by Badger Blogger, and echoed throughout the right side of the Cheddarsphere, I have incorrectly noted the base sites for the advertising agencies used by each candidate. I regret this error. Furthermore, I do stand that I am disappointed that Senator Taylor's campaign did not use a Wisconsin Company.

SIDENOTE: Is it me, or is Walker wearing the same tie in each commercial? (No point to make; just an observation.)

Expect to hear her ads on the radio in the near future. She will have to pay for hers, as that I doubt Charlie Sykes and Mark Belling will give her the free time they give Walker.

Crossposted on Whallah!

McAuliffe Cuts (the video feed) and Runs

By Keith Schmitz

Surprisingly with all of the dissection going on of the Democratic Presidential candidates, this one didn't make it on the cable news shows.

Last week on Bill Maher's "Real Time" Clinton campaign chair Terry McAuliffe was on live during an early part of the show.

McAuliffe stepped into a grilling so sizzling you could almost smell the hot grease. That's the risk anyone runs when they offer themselves up on "Real Time."

Russert and others who head up interview shows want to have the guests come back and so they pull punches.

Maher on the other hand subjects his guests to pointed questions -- and follow ups.

Apparently the McAuliffe or someone on the Clinton staff couldn't take the heat about Hillary's experience and her praising John McCain , so to get him out of the kitchen something unusual happened. Someone cut the feed.

Happy Pi Day

by folkbum

Celebrate by doing something nerdy.

Or by just eating some pie. It's all good.

Breaking News: Saddam caused 9-11

by bert
It is a mixture of different motives that propel newspapers to do what they do. Newspapers want to make money, they want to be well regarded. That’s fine, because they are a business that produces a retail product.

At the same time, newsrooms want to inform citizens about what their government is doing, to make the world a better place. In other words, newspapers give a little bit of what people want to read, and a little bit of what people should read.

Take the Journal Sentinel. They give us a lot on American Idol, which I guess is a TV show or something. Brett Favre and Hannah Montana, of course.

But the paper, to their newsroom's credit, has also given readers stuff that was less tasty, but instead good for them: a damning look inside the government's failure to care for mentally ill people comes to mind, or wire service coverage about the renewed genocide waged by Sudan.

So there is fluff in the Milwaukee daily that folks want to read, and stuff they ought to read. And, since there are a few dozen pages to each paper, it’s OK to do a little of both.

However, here’s a different question. What if the paper gives us what it thinks people want to read even though it conflicts with what people ought to read? To wit, the 1A story by Meg Jones today that tells us Saddam Hussein caused the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S.

The headline on the story reads: "Memory of 9-11 shaped young state Marines". It is a part of a series of stories that Jones is filing from Iraq about local soldiers. These men and women are making admirable sacrifices, and lots of readers appreciate coverage of them. I suspect that Journal Sentinel managers also believe these stories will reflect well on the paper itself.

Most of the time these stories by Jones assiduously avoid touching on the reasons for the war, the government's conduct of the war, or the place where the war is being fought. I think the decision going in to this project was to produce stories that are "postive" and that readers will enjoy. Leave the icky stuff for the wire copy we run on 3A.

In today's story, information about the reasons for the war nevertheless leak in around the focus on the soldiers. But these reasons are incorrect. In fact, they are a damnable lie. The article recounts the Sept. 11 memories of Lance Cpl. Devin Fedel of Waukesha, who was drawing in an art class in eighth grade in 2001 when news of the attacks were announced:

"It kind of steered me into joining the Marines. It made me mad, and I wanted to do something about it," Fedel said.

Jones' story did not balance this geopolitical analysis by an eighth-grader with any of the abundantly available sources for the fact that Saddam Hussein did not cause the 9-11 attacks. Instead, the effect of her story resuscitates an early, now discarded, rationale that the Bush administration peddled as it built a case for attacking Iraq about five or six years ago.

That's my main point: The paper's aim to bring back stories of local soldiers is fine, and the soldiers are at least as entitled to their take on the war as I am. But the war is too important to not balance a quotation that feeds into a damnable lie perpetrated by the government that papers are supposed to be bird-dogging.

Many people did or still do believe that Hussein was directly involved in killing about 3,000 Americans in 2001. This myth-making is well documented in books by journalists from John Nichols to Frank Rich. It happened through statements by Vice President Dick Cheney in late 2001 that it was "pretty well confirmed" that one of the men who plowed a plane into the World Trade Center was linked to Hussein. The impression was built subtly but unmistakenly in to the way President Bush's aides wrote his 2003 State of the Union address.

Surely Meg Jones must know that Bush has since admitted that Saddam had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks. Some Journal Sentinel editors must also be aware that a Pentagon report this week substantiates the lack of any such connection.

Here is what is most stunning about this story by Meg Jones and the paper that published it. On the very day this story ran, the Journal Sentinel did not run the news that the White House is working to keep that report secret.

It is as if the paper had to choose --when the issue in play was a war for god's sake -- whether to run news that folks would like to believe or run news that they should know.

UPDATE: Oopsy, my bad, Patrick McIlheran informs us that Saddam did have some support for groups that in certain respects resemble those who did do 9-11.

Scott Walker, The Hypocrite: Part II-The McIlheran Edition

by capper

I have shown where Scott Walker is a hypocrite. Here is another shining example of his hypocrisy.

Walker sent an email to Patrick McIlheran (I'm sure Sykes, Belling and the rest of the local right wing media will be giving him more free advertising soon enough). In his email, Walker crows about how he got tough with the unions to save the taxpayers from having their hard-earned money from being squandered:

”So, I had to send out hundreds of layoff notices in December to the remaining 75% of the employees in those areas to let them know that there was not funding left for their jobs. Soon after that action, our largest employee union came to the table and made significant concessions to save the jobs. Still, we had to hold some of those positions throughout 2007. Had we filled all that they restored without funding, we would not have a surplus of $7 million.

Well, now instead of crowing about his hard-nosed approach, Walker should consider putting his nose down and eating some crow. Walker wasn't has tough as he would like you to think he was.

A friend of mine that is still employed by the County, gave me a copy of the union's tentative contract. The same contract that Walker signed and the union ratified. Here is part of it:

Sorry about the poor quality, but please not the last bullet point where it says employees would receive a $250 lump sum payment. This is a signing bonus, folks. Walker was so desperate to have this contract signed, a contract that was authored by David Reimer (who was sent by Doyle to help, and who also was Walker's opponent in 2004), that he gave each and every county employee a signing bonus. That's tough as nails, for sure.

And speaking of budgets and savings, Walker is still trying to take credit for the hard work of the County Board. Not everyone is letting him get away with it though. Soon to be retired County Board Supervisor Richard Nyklewicz Jr. had this to say, as reported by All Politics:

Milwaukee County Supervisor Richard Nyklewicz Jr., who is retiring from the board next month, used his last stint as finance committee chairman today to launch a blistering criticism of Walker, saying Walker had unfairly claimed credit for a 2007
year-end surplus of $7 million.

The surplus was due primarily to huge savings in health insurance costs for county employees that offset some deficits in several county departments, Nyklewicz said. Those changes were included in the 2007 county budget, which Walker vetoed in its entirety.

“He abdicated his responsibility for the budget” at the time, but now takes credit for it, Nyklewicz said.

County Auditor Jerome Heer agreed that health care changes led to the
surplus. A task force that included some top Walker aides called for the health care changes, which have resulted in savings of about $75 million over three years, Heer said

Walker may have dropped out of school, but he still has earned a Master's Degree in Hypocrisy.

Scott Walker, The Hypocrite

by capper

Walker is a big, old hypocrite.

He repeatedly harps about how Senator Taylor is "raising tons of money from special interests in Madison" and other silly things like:

In fact, outsiders such as Governor Doyle and special interest groups in Madison and even Washington, DC are gathering loads of cash to influence our election in April.

He even gets his poor wife into the act of spreading these baseless claims. But even if it were true, how would he explain this email sent out by his campaign (the name and other personal information has been changed to protect the source)(emphasis mine):

From: Walker Supporter

Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2008 3:36 PM

To: Walker Supporter [WalkerSupporter@hypocrite.com

Subject: Upcoming Scott Walker Event Reminder!

Please forward this on to all those interested in participating. Attached is a copy of the invitation.

You are invited to an event honoring Scott Walker Milwaukee County Executive

Brocach Irish Pub (upstairs lounge)

7 W. Main Street

Madison, WI

Tuesday, March 18th, 2008

5:30pm – 7:30pm

Host Contribution: $250 Attendee:

$25/Individual

PAC and individual checks gratefully accepted.

Checks may be made payable to "Friends of Scott Walker" and sent to:

Friends of Scott Walker

PO Box 100828

Milwaukee, WI 53210

Please RSVP to Walker Supporter at 608.555.555 or by email to WalkerSupporter@hypocrite.com

Authorized and Paid for by Friends of Scott Walker, John Hiller, Treasurer

He complains that Senator Taylor is getting special interest money from Madison, but is grateful for his own special interest money from Madison.

That makes him a big, old hypocrite.

Pretty Women

by 3rd Way

Spitzer's career and family was left devastated immediately after his tryste with "Kristen" was announced. Meanwhile "Kristen" is Manhattan's newest millionare.

From New York Magazine:

"The two songs on her Amie Street profile, which each cost 98 cents, have been downloaded more than two million times, and Dupre will recieve 70 percent of the total profit. "

According to my math that works out to more than $1.3 million. Penthouse and Playboy are allegedly both interested in featuring her on their pages. Our culture astounds me sometimes. The stock market slowed when the news broke, the universal condemnation of Spitzer's action was immediate and appropriate, but now we are passively celebrating the other unscrupulous actor in the affair.

Hillary is right. Our media treats the sexes differently. Gender differences are vast, you can't expect them to be dealt with evenhandedily.

Is There A Doctor In The House?

by capper


The brain drain in Milwaukee County continues. This time the cause can be traced directly back to, who else, Walker.

The medical examiner's office has lost 50% of its qualified forensic pathologists, and there is a strong concern that the others will also leave.

To be fair, Dr. Jeffrey Jentzen retired after 22 years, so I won't blame Walker for his loss. However, the next in line, Dr. Russell Alexander turned down a $75,000 a year raise to move to Maryland.

The medical examiner's office and the D.A.'s office are both warning Walker that there is a strong danger of there being a backlog of autopsies, which would hamper law enforcement and prosecution of murderers. Walker is now forced to increase the salaries for pathologists, which he slashed in 2004, by $25,000 each, and replace a position for a forensic investigator, just one of the one's he cut out in previous years.

There is no word on how Walker plans to pay for all of this. Perhaps he will tap the $7 million dollar surplus that the County Board gave Milwaukee.

There have been no return calls from Dr. Quincy. Walker is standing by the phone, just in case.

Let's Trade Up

by folkbum

I say, forget the bowlers. Now there's prime real estate available across the street from Southridge. Can we get a Costco? Good jobs, good prices, a reasonable driving distance from the folkbum household. It's a winner all the way around.

What do you say, Greenfield?

Seriously?

by folkbum

UPDATE: Sometime today they changed photos. Smart!

Who on earth thought that this is what people want to wake up to in the morning?



photo from the Journal Sentinel

Yet Another Broken Promise By Walker

by capper

We have seen that Walker has a problem with keeping promises. First, he lied about not running in 2008. Then we saw him lie about privatization. The most recent lie he has been caught up in is about cronyism.

In 2002, when he rode CRG's wave into the County Executive's office, he signed off on CRG's platform of campaign promises. One of these promises was this:

Implement a program to eliminate cronyism and nepotism in county government, including a review of all management and supervisory functions under the executive. Within 60 days.

Funny, I thought to eliminate meant to remove, not to participate in.

We have three examples to highlight this. The first one, and to be honest, the weakest example was the special election last summer, when he tried to get his friend and campaign contributor, Chris Kujawa, elected to the County Board in a special election. Kujawa lost, fortunately.

The next example is Thomas Nardelli. In 2002, Walker's main opponent, Jim Ryan, accused Walker and Nardelli of scheming and backroom dealing in the sense that if Nardelli would quit the race and support Walker, Walker would in turn give Nardelli a job. Walker and Nardelli both denied it. Now, Nardelli is Walker's chief of staff. Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not.

Ryan had good reason to suspect a deal was in the works. A lot of people had similar thoughts. From the archives of WisPolitics.com:

Walker, who claims to be a reform candidate, appears to have promised high-ranking county government jobs to unqualified individuals. While pretending to oppose nepotism and favoritism, Walker instead plans to hand out taxpayer-supported jobs to political buddies.

In recent days, numerous Walker campaign workers have openly told reporters that they anticipate getting government jobs in a Walker administration. A number of these individuals have no experience in county government, and their biggest "qualification" is political support of Scott Walker.

One of these campaign workers is Jim Villa. Jim Villa has worked on both of Walker's previous campaigns for County Executive, and had been Walker's Chief of Staff (to be replaced by Nardelli-see the pattern yet?). Now we see Walker is trying to give Villa further rewards by nominating him to the Milwaukee Public Museum Board.

Fortunately, once again, the county board shows more sense and integrity than Walker by tabling the nomination. From All Politics at JSOnline:

Supervisor Richard Nyklewicz Jr. asked for Villa's appointment to be tabled, citing "significant concerns, given his political background." He declined further comment.

Supervisor Lynne De Bruin, the parks committee chairwoman, said she voted for tabling Villa's appointment to avoid a divisive public debate that might cause the public to question the management at the museum.

"I didn't want any worries on the public’s mind of who is on the museum board and who is not," she said. The museum working through a financial recovery plan begun last year.

With a track record like his, it is clearly evident why Walker would have a fear of commitment to Milwaukee County.

Please help support Lena Taylor, so that we can take our county back from corrupt liars like Tom Ament and Scott Walker.

No Honor Among Thieves

by capper

Yesterday, Walker's campaign came out with a press release stating that he had given Milwaukee County a $7 million surplus in 2007. The usual suspects, both local and from far away lands, rejoiced and sang their accolades.

It struck me as wrong. I knew that the County still owed the pension fund tens of millions of dollars. I also knew that many budgets, like HOC and the mental health complex were way over their allotments. But something else was wrong.

JSOnline's Political blog pointed it out:

Darn right, said three county supervisors, Richard Nyklewicz Jr., Roger Quindel and John Weishan Jr. All pointed out that Walker vetoed the entire 2007 county budget, which was overridden by the County Board. That should deny him any bragging rights for the surplus, the supervisors said separately.

Furthermore, it was a board-led move to recraft the county's health insurance that provided such a windfall in savings that it offset other departmental deficits for '07, said Nyklewicz, the County Board's finance commitee[sic] chairman.

You can find the original story from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel here.

We owe a big thank you to the county board for having the wisdom, the foresight and the courage to prevent one of Walker's disastrous budgets from wreaking full havoc, for at least that year.

Stay tuned for when Walker takes credit for winning World War II, being the first man on the moon, and for creating the iPhone.

Locus of Control

by folkbum

Brian Fraley overturns every rock to find a liberal poster (who, until someone pointed it out to him, thought the governor of New York was named "Elliot Spencer") who blames George W. Bush for Elliot Spitzer's whoring.

I ask what's worse--or, perhaps, what's more representative: A nobody from the "Left" lobbing spitballs at Bush, or one of the right's most respected voices blaming women for their husbands' whoring?

That's right, ladies, if your guy goes out to pay for sex, Dr. Laura blames you.

(Standard disclaimer: Breaking the law, even between consenting adults, is still breaking the law, and we should soon be talking about former Governor Spitzer.)

I did finally make it home

by folkbum

And dad did finally make it out of the ICU. It was not fun for either of us.