Opening… my cuts are bigger than your cuts.
You’re kidding me right? This passes for a debate question? McCain looks like he’s been up for 20 hours straight. Give this poor guy a cup of coffee. His eyes are glassy.
McCain wants to help people who have bought bad home loans.
Obama looks directly into the camera — smart. He wants a rescue package for the middle class. He wants 1) jobs, 2) a tax cut for people with make less than a quarter million, fix our energy crisis and health care.
McCain is worried about plumbers who want to buy the business they work for. Apparently there’s some guy named Joe out there who McCain believes that Obama will raise taxes on. McCain is telling people what he believes Obama stands for. Obama cries foul and says he’ll cut taxes on 95% of families. Apparently Obama knows “Joe the plumber” too. This Joe must be a popular guy.
McCain is worried that Obama will take Joe’s money and spread the wealth around starting class warfare. McCain seems to be focusing on what he believes Obama supports. Obama says McCain is wrong. This is going to be a long 90 minutes.
Once again McCain is accusing Obama of …. blah blah blah … taxes taxes taxes. He’s sounding more like a one trick pony.

Question: Aren’t you both ignoring reality? What would you cut?
Obama: If the rescue package is structured properly, taxpayers will get their money back. We’re all living beyond our means. He’s a proponent of pay as you go. You want to spend a dollar, you need to cut a dollar. He’ll go through the budget line by line to make cuts. (All politicians say this. Do you know how long and large the federal budget would be?)
McCain: Let’s get back to home ownership. McCain invokes Senator Hillary Clinton. He wants to stop sending money to counties that don’t like us and he’ll have an across the board spending freeze. He says government spending is out of control and he knows how to eliminate programs such as subsidies for ethanol and the tariff for sugar based ethanol from Brazil.
Obama: Across the board spending freezes are hatchet jobs where what we need is a scalpel. These earmarks that McCain mentions represent 1/2 of 1%.

Question: Can you balance the budget in 4 years?
McCain: I’m not President Bush. I’ll create jobs with energy independence and eliminating spending. Accuses Obama of not standing up to the leaders of his party.
Obama: Yes. He’ll reach across the aisle and won’t be limited by traditional democratic groups. He supports tort reform, charter schools, pay for performance for teachers and clean coal technology. (Hmmmm…. and why are we calling McCain the maverick?) On tax policy, energy policy and spending policies, McCain has been a supporter of President Bush.
McCain: I fight for stuff. Lots of stuff. I have a long record of fighting for reform. Doesn’t believe that Obama is convincing.

Pinstripes? Pinstripes made from silver thread? What were the McCain advisors thinking? Is that a zoot suit?

Question: This campaign is negative. Will you say to each others face these same things while sitting across for them?
McCain: He says he’s repudiated every remark that has come from his side that isn’t true. He says Obama has spent more money on negative ads than anyone. Says Obama is spending more than on any campaign since Watergate.
Obama: 2/3rds of the American people say that McCain’s campaign ads are negative. There’s nothing wrong with debates like tonight, but he doesn’t mind being attacked for the next three weeks but the American people can’t deal with four more years of the economic policies.
McCain: Says Obama is negative but McCain supports Joe the plumber.
Obama: McCain’s running mate (Palin) has been at McCain rallies where people have attacked Obama and called Obama “terrorist” and “kill him”.
McCain: We shouldn’t stand for the kind of things that are going on.
Obama: We need to work together and disagree without being disagreeable. We shouldn’t characterize each other as being bad people.
McCain: Believes ACORN could destroy the fabric of our democracy and says Ayers questions need to be answered.
Obama: Bill Ayers is a Professor. When Obama was 8 year old, Ayers did despicable things. A few years ago Ayers was on a same board as Obama. ACORN was paying people to register votes but Obama had nothing to do with them aside from helping them to make it possible for people to register to vote where people can get a drivers license.
McCain: Says Obama will raise taxes.

Good grief. 43 minutes into this. I don’t think I can bear another 47.

Summary: McCain is whining about what a horrible President he believes Obama would be. That cup of coffee that McCain needed — I could use one. I thought he’d have something else. Obama is responding to all of the accusations. My insomnia is cured. Maybe I’ll watch the end and comment on them. Probably not.

Obama will win Wisconsin, a state whose delegates went to John Edwards four years ago — and Wisconsinites are going to feel pretty damn good about it. So will we, here at Watchdog Milwaukee.

Americans don’t know what a president looks like until we elect one. Then, with sudden realization, we know. Talk about Barack Obama’s presidential chances began after his stirring speech at the 2004 Democratic convention. It was easy to shrug off then.

Many of us began looking for reasons why, despite the passion and inspiration he brought to that speech, he would not run for the presidency. Too soon. He hadn’t even begun his first term. America’s not yet ready for an African-American president. It was a pipedream. Looking back, these were all excuses that have since evaporated.

But then we looked back at one of the speakers from the 1988 Democratic convention – an impassioned governor from the state of Arkansas presented a 32-minute address to delegates. That man was Bill Clinton, and he not only won the presidency but he went on to win a second term. Sixteen years later, a young senator from Illinois took the podium and wow’ed us.

The comparisons between Obama and the former president don’t end there. Like Bill Clinton, who had the courage to tell displaced workers that their jobs were gone but he would fight for retraining money for new, better jobs, Obama recently said, “we need somebody who is going to tell the American people not just what they want to hear, but what they need to hear.” It is this courage and honesty that we need at a time when eight years of Republican reign have thrown us into the morass of war, to a crippling national debt and to the brink of recession.

To be president is to be a dream, and Obama is living a dream before our very eyes. He envisions a different America, where anyone can achieve anything if one puts the heart, mind and some shoulder grease into it. We remember this place — it’s the America we heard about when we were kids, before we knew that factories rust in the snow and jobs disappear overseas. It’s the place where a community organizer working in impoverished neighborhoods on the south side of Chicago can go to law school, get elected to the statehouse, win a U.S. Senate seat and lay claim to the presidency.

It’s a story of inspiration and fighting for one’s passion. Now is the time that America, that Americans, need that inspiration. Now is a time we all need that hope. We need change and we need someone willing to fight for change.

Obama says he wants a different debate, not the same old arguments about big government and the free economy that Democrats and Republicans have been having since the late 1960′s. He believes America is going to be a better place, a different place. We believe him more than other candidates because he exudes this vision.

Obama’s primary opponent, Senator and former first lady Hillary Clinton, for all of her past work on health care, schools and womens’ issues, doesn’t bring the passion or the charisma that Obama exudes. While Clinton can legitimately argue that she has a better healthcare plan, she continues to be too hawkish on the war. We have no doubt that Clinton would make a great president, and Americans are fortunate to finally have a choice between two supremely qualified individuals. But it is Obama that sparks our imagination.

Factor in Obama’s surprising strong showing in Iowa and convincing win in Minnesota, and the choice is easy for Wisconsin. Democrats can’t win the presidency without flexing their muscles in the upper Midwest and in Mideast states like Pennsylvania, where the economy has long been the number one issue. Winning Ohio this time around would certainly help. It is in these states where Obama is proving strongest.

And why shouldn’t Obama succeed in the Midwest? He spent most of his working life in Chicago, the city of big shoulders, before its people sent him to the Illinois senate and to Washington as their representative. For Milwaukeeans and other denizens of the nation’s rust belt, Obama offers the rarest of presidential election opportunities: The chance to elect one of our own. It hasn’t happened in more than a century.

Imagine that.

I ducked briefly into The Riverwester bar on Bremen Street last Thursday to escape nature’s whupping, finding kindly irrascible sorts good enough to put up with my presence and pop the tops on a coupla cheap Pabsts, even though I am not a regular regular in the place.

At one point in the evening, Mayor Tom Barrett appeared on an emergency broadcast to offer assurances that, yes, the city had the weather situation well in hand. We would all live to see another day.

“What the hell’s the mayor doing on TV talking about the weather?” somebody groused from the end of the bar.

“Cuz it’ll blow over!” shouted one Steven Homfeldt, sitting to my left with his wife, enjoying a stormy brew or two.

And, much like many of the cities problems that won’t blow over …

“There’s not a damn thing he can do about it,” Homfeldt roared.

So did everybody else at The Riverwester bar on Bremen Street.

But Jim’s Watchdog post “AirTran Deal Not So Bad for Milwaukee” continues to generate a lot of discussion as we weigh the merits of AirTran’s proposals and Midwest’s growth plan. Also on the table: How committed to Milwaukee would AirTran be? How committed is Midwest really? What does real growth mean in the air travel industry? – and other questions.

More than anything, Milwaukee’s parochialism and often quaint perception of itself within the larger economy is a steady undercurrent to the AirTran question, and local media perpetuates this. The New York Times and AP, on the other hand, have given AirTran’s latest offer more merit than it has received in local media. Read the AP/New York Times story here.

Nationally it seems, AirTran’s takeover of Milwaukee’s “regional airline” is not considered so nefarious.

In comparison, here’s the link to coverage in the Journal Sentinel.

McGee wrap up and a look back
Only a few blocks of Riverwest are in the 6th Aldermanic District, but because the neighborhood is just across Holton Street from the eastern end of the 6th, Riverwesters took a strong interest in Ald. Michael McGee, Jr. In fact, Riverwest Currents, the monthly community newspaper, supported McGee against Marlene Johnson three years ago and has featured the alderman on its cover (in 2004, a couple of months before the barrage of headline-making McGee hijinks hit).

Scanning the blogosphere after the election, I found some commentary and a nice link to our analysis of the McGee recall attempt election night on http://riverwestneighborhood.org, a great looking website. Check it out.

That’s a take from east of the 6th. Here’s a post-election take from a nicely-designed website from west of the 6th, in Sherman Park, by business consultant James T. Harris, who mans the 7-9PM slot Sunday nights on TMJ – TMJ’s only black radio host that I’m aware of.

Most the criticism of McGee in the blogosphere and in media came from outside the district (I live and vote in it). Here at Watchdog, McGee has been an ongoing subject of blogs and commentary during his first term. We went back and forth over the recall, but even early on the alderman was a prime candidate for our “LackeyWatch.”

Here’s Jim on the snafu over McGee’s name.

“Faces of Rage” – thoughts on aldermen, vicious cops and male strippers.

Here we come to McGee’s defense in the fight against those “forces of darkness.”

The full McGee archive – 16 posts dating back to March 2005.

Enjoy!

The tall, mustachio’ed white guy standing just behind McGee as the alderman did his victory interview looked an awful lot like John Balcerzak, president of the Milwaukee cops’ union. Balcerzak had been on the news earlier in the day to say that the union was backing off the full pay for fired cops during the fire and police commission appeal process. If it was Balcerzak — and I’m not stating that it was — can anyone who also saw the Channel 12 interview confirm or refute this? I’m putting this out as part of the process of establishing fact. It was a quick TV interview, though a good one, and the reporter made no note that it was Balcerzak.

It does make sense that McGee, Jr., or the cops working the 6th Aldermanic District would begin some conversations in light of the 6th District’s convincing affirmation of McGee; it doesn’t seem out of the question at all that the cops’ union chief might want to open a relationship. Let’s spark some interactive journalism here at Watchdog. Is this, in fact what is happening?

For the record and the sake of some reportage here, McGee thanked god for his victory and that the recall process was over, and seemed genuinely overwhelmed a bit by the 65% show of support 6th District voters gave him. He said he thought the recall process brought him “closer to his constituents.”

“I want black people to stop killing each other,” he closed. “That’s what I want – what I’m about.”

This was a statement election from the near northeast side of Milwaukee, where I live and vote. McGee has renewed life, has reached a plateau, a solid place where he can stand in confidence knowing that he goes back to city hall with a mandate. Given the realities of this recalll effort and the 6th District, that’s quite a statement indeed.

The city of Milwaukee, not Ald. Michael McGee, needs to change.

Vianna Jordan — the retired U.S. Army communications specialist who stood up to a barrage of dirty tricks, intimidation tactics and legal challenges from the McGee camp after she filed recall signatures last fall – deserves the chance to run head-to-head to be the alderman for this district.

The polls closed a minute ago. At no time during the 6th Aldermanic District recall did any of the eight candidates running for a chance to be the next alderman knock on our door to ask me or m’accomplice for our votes. Yes, she is a registered voter at this address. And, no, we didn’t get a single “sorry we missed you” lit drop. So it was difficult to take any of the candidates seriously, and we considered sitting it out so the rest of the district could decide whether McGee should stand for a recall or not. (If McGee gets 50 percent of today’s vote – and this isn’t likely – I don’t have many punctuation options here to underscore how wrong I was on this point -he keeps our city council seat.)

McGee did mail us a glossy, postcard-sized flier last week, but it should be noted that sending out a mass mailer is expensive. First a candidate needs to buy the registered voters’ list – about $1,000; then produce the flier (printers are not cheap); and mail it to, at minimum, the 10,345 voters in this district who voted in the 2004 aldermanic race won by McGee. This covers the bulk of the $10,000 McGee reported spending in defense of his seat. No other candidate had that much on hand in this recall.

I also received a nice email after yesterday’s post from a supporter of Una Van Duvall, a Department of City Development administrative assistant who has a lot of support from her neighbors in Brewer’s Hill. Support from one’s neighbors is a good thing, and Una seemed to gain momentum as the election approached. Vianna Jordan’s supporters said Una was “riding on Vianna’s coattails.” Una supporters said Vianna had offered no ideas of her own, instead focusing on criticizing McGee. Someone had to criticize Mcgee to justify the recall. Vianna’s supporters also noted that DCD’s record is abysmal, not that Una had anything to do with that in her job as an administrative aide.

McGee has thrown down a challenge of his own. “We’re at war with the city of Milwaukee,” McGee said at a city hall press conference. Can anyone who knows the 6th Aldermanic district really argue? A system of crack houses line the alleyways just west of Holton Street from North Ave. on up to Keefe. Dealers sling heroin within three blocks of the District 5 police station. The police? They set officer Dan Masarik loose in our neighborhoods with a taser, unleashing a flood of citizen complaints — in one Masarik screamed at Puerto Rican residents: “This is OUR neighborhood now.” That was before Masarik joined the mauling of Frank Jude, Jr.

McGee claims to represent the disenfranchised of this district. But he also represents me. I voted for him against Marlene Johnson in 2004 because it was time for a change. Now the question is whether the district likes McGee’s … let’s call it “style” … which can only be described as reactionary absurdity. He’s like a crazy character written into a blaxploitation film. Truth is, things do get hoop-dee crazy out here. McGee’s challenge to the black community to fend off outside forces has legs … and arms too.

As we drove to the polls, I wondered about the Journal Sentinel endorsement, and why, after all of Vianna’s hard work, it went to Una. In reality, a candidate probably doesn’t want the JS endorsement in this race (those outside forces again, which McGee calls “forces of darkness.”) But I wondered why Vianna, who did the hard work to make this recall vote possible, who withstood all challenges to the signatures she collected from within the district – much more work than any candidate in this race has done – seemed to receive so little respect. True, her supporters are political outsiders such as Leon Todd, who obtained a restraining order against McGee during the race. Attorney Alan Eisenberg is another. Is their support a factor? Is it because, before she led the recall, Vianna was inexperienced? Because her background is in the military, not in politics?

On many levels, McGee has a point: The 6th District does not necessarily want an alderman schooled in the Byzantine processes of city hall. We’d like someone who has their feet in the district – all of it – not just development rich Brewer’s Hill. This election is certainly a test of these notions and the above questions. Three years ago, the answer for the 6th was Michael McGee, Jr., and his chances of fighting off this recall are fairly good.

But for us on election day, the answer is Vianna Jordan. She’s done the work in this race, and has given the district every reason to believe she would do the same at city hall.

As I write it is Sunday afternoon, two days before the vote. I’m one of two registered voters at a house just off Holton Street on the eastern end of the 6th Aldermanic District. There are seven challengers and Ald. Michael McGee, Jr. vying for a shot at a head-to-head run off to be our alderman. Every vote will count in this low turnout race, judging by past spring elections. There are only a few thousand votes out there. It’s the kind of race where the candidate who knocks on the most doors, talks to the most people and hangs the most door-lit would be tough to beat.

Two days before the election and it is raining, but we’re waiting nonetheless for the happy sound of grassroots politics: footsteps on the porch, lit being dropped in the door, or better still, a knock on the door from a candidate asking for our votes. In this part of the 6th District, all’s quiet.

Two days out and here’s how the candidates stack up in terms of campaign activity at our house:

Ald. Michael McGee, Jr. – 1
Jesus Christ – 1

Campaign volunteers for Jesus came by the other day and dropped some lit at the door, asking us to join in remembering “the greatest man who ever lived” on the anniversary of his death, Monday, April 2. This was rubber-banded to the doorknob, a sure sign that volunteers for Jesus were out in the neighborhoods, working the grassroots. McGee hasn’t been on the block. We received a mass mailer from the alderman a couple of days ago. It’s glossy, the size of a postcard, and tells us he is “Fighting for Justice God’s Way”.

Who would you vote for, Jesus as a write-in or Michael McGee, Jr.? We just might sit this one out.

###

When MPD Chief Nan Hegerty threw the hooker bomb at a news conference Thursday, the obvious implication was that Sheriff David Clarke is mismanaging the jail (the Watchdog faithful will be familiar with Gretchen Schuldt‘s reporting last year on some of the problems at the jail.)

But yesterday’s big story said more about Chief Hegerty than it did about Sheriff Dave: By blaming Clarke for preventing her business-as-usual policing strategies, Hegerty managed to show again that she has never had a plan to help make Milwaukee a safer place. The stated purpose of Hegerty’s press conference, by the way, was to tell the media how she intended to use all of those new police officers city taxpayers anted up for in the last city budget. Here’s the so-called plan to fight violent crime, folks, as we see it:

“More patrols. That’s right, more patrols in violent crime areas. Oh, and by the way, we tried to lock up a hundred or so nonviolent prostitutes the other day … but we were unable to make reservations at the jail.” (Apparently, the chief called ahead.)

Shift camera to Sheriff Dave, who explained that there was a backlog in the booking area (the source of many a jail management problem) for a couple of hours on the day in question, but that everyone who needed a room eventually managed to find an available bed in a pod. His operative metaphor is long lines at the grocery store.

Clarke then correctly pointed out that the chief (and by proxy Mayor Tom Barrett) were taking a political jab at his highness for backing, if not instigating, south side Ald. Bob Donovan’s whacky crime-stopping plan, which included Clarke’s pet idea to take sheriff’s deputies off the freeways and put them on street patrol in Milwaukee.

Nobody mentioned that one of Hegerty’s first big ideas as police chief was to round up all the prostitutes she could find. It cost county taxpayers $45,000-plus to pay for their room and board. Most were released within a day or two and went right back to doing what they were doing before they were swept up by Hegerty’s gendarmes.

Barrett announced last month that the city will embark on a study to provide some direction into better law enforcement strategies. Barrett now has a chance to renew the task force work of the late 1990′s, which was blinded by the Norquist administration nearly seven years ago. The task force stemmed from criminal justice summits held by Judge Patrick Sheedy, was led by District Attorney E. Michael McCann and included metro police and the Sheriff’s Department, Dept. of Corrections officials, criminal justice reform and community advocates. It was an attempt to bring together the disparate players of the criminal justice and law enforcement communities to find some effective, cooperative community corrections/policing strategies — in the face of the city of Milwaukee’s resistance to community policing strategies.

The differences this time are: 1) Barrett is mayor; 2) This study group will ostensibly look more specifically at policing strategies; and 3) Barrett is preparing to hire a new police chief. In any case, cooperation from all of the players in law enforcement and criminal justice will be necessary for any effective strategies to emerge.

Hegerty exploited the serious and troubling rise of violent crime in the city this week to point the finger at Clarke, to imply, “manage your jail and I might be able to do my job.” This is counterproductive, obviously. Clarke is known more for grandstanding and pointing fingers than working with others, but he did no real harm in backing some ideas from a city alderman (Bob Donovan). Hegerty only gave Clarke an opportunity to show that he’s, at very least, a better politician than she is.

It’s not as though Hegerty has any better ideas. But let’s hope Barrett eventually does. They are long overdue. So is some cooperation from our local law enforcement agencies.

Note: For more on MPD prostitution stings and their (negative) impact, see the Benedict Center web site. The Benedict Center is a local nonprofit criminal justice reform agency that runs a nationally-reknowned Womens Harm Reduction program.

The Sykes discussion was interesting in that New York City often does interesting things and the rest of the country reacts (Rudy Giulliani's anti-graffiti ads would have been and still are a great Milwaukee conversation piece); it was interesting to listen to the arguments and rhetoric unfurl on both sides. I didn't understand why this was an issue for a Milwaukee Sunday talk show, but then I don't know what Charlie's programming values are.

Here at Watchdog we’ve been talking about guns, and about the 2nd Amendment.  We wondered where and how the constitutional protections for "concealed carry" (CC) legislation can be found in the 2nd Amendment.  We posted links to research on concealed carry, put together by state Rep. Jon Richards.  We talked about Minnesota, a concealed carry state where Minneapolis leads the nation in soaring violent crime.  Milwaukee is number two on that violent crime spike list, and we don’t have concealed carry. Concealed carry is obviously a wash, a non-factor as these disturbing new violent crime trends occur in Upper Midwest cities not named Detroit. Something’s happening … nobody’s sure exactly what, but CC is not even on the table in the criminal justice discussion.  It seems, however, that CC will never leave the political realm.

What does this have to do with trans fatty acids?  Absolutely nothing.  But there’s this idea out there, present and accounted for in the fatty acid debate by conservatives such as Charlie Sykes and Patrick McInerney and yes, County Supervisor Lynne Debruin, whose main goal seems to be to agree with every idea and person she is confronted with – that TFA prevention amounts to undue government intervention. One of our readers then compared the New York fatty acid law to government telling gun owners they can’t walk around in public with concealed weapons.

Naturally, I was slobbering like Deuce our pit bull mascot over this diversion, but also well aware that this is the sort of thing that happens more and more these days when people start talking politics. There’s no pit bull intensity, no German shepherd-like discipline to topic … it devolves to Labrador retriever slop. (Don’t worry, the dog metaphor comes back around again later).

The idea of Big Government and the 2nd Amendment is a strange creature. The amendment is easily the most misunderstood in the Bill of Rights, if not its most tested.  The amendment’s definition of “militia” came to be rooted, not in the general semantics of the word "militia", but to the bygone era when state-approved militias were the public police.  Since then, the revolutionary spine of the 2nd Amendment has long eroded and been shaped to suit government purposes.  Bloody FBI-militia battles in the 1970’s taught groups like the American Indian Movement that the letter of the constitution could not be enforced against the government. And the last 20 years have seen an unprecedented federalization of law enforcement that is quickly becoming a critical discussion around the country about dispersion of police resources and response to crime in the city.

Meanwhile, the National Rifle Association has used the 2nd Amendment as an umbrella to further promote the American culture of guns, never the intent of the amendment at all. In fact, the 2nd Amendment is terrible law, as it legislates the means by which the citizenry ought to defend itself — the militia. The individual who takes up arms in self-defense against another individual, and the means by which he or she chooses to do so, is not a matter arbitrated in the Bill of Rights.  Personal self-defense is an inherently local criminal justice issue, and the 2nd Amendment provides no means for it.

Yet over many American generations, various 2nd Amendment legal arguments have been twisted into a political debate about ownership of certain types of firearms and other weapons, and the vagaries of where, when and how a person is allowed to use them.  One big 2nd Amendment misconception is that legal use of a firearm can be based on property ownership, property being a core principle in the constitution. But the courts have repeatedly ruled that a citizen can't shoot another to protect property. And under any circumstances, if an unarmed person is shot in the back — even if the shooting victim is on a property and running off with the shooter’s mom's TV (yes, this occurred in Milwaukee in 1997) – the person who fired the gun is going to prison.  Recently, a Racine jury ruled that it’s illegal to protect your girlfriend by shooting someone. The law says you have to find another way.

As a lifelong urban resident who’s written for years about criminal law, it's all too clear that the situations in which you can legally fire the gun are so rare that it's nearly inconceivable that concealed carry is still debated as seriously as it is. But the reality is that CC exists in almost every state – all but four, Wisconsin being one of the four.  It is legislation that lives and breathes in the aquarium of politics – because the NRA wants it so bad; because it appeals to rural residents who don’t see it as a big deal; because rural legislators and suburban ring Republicans can outvote urban legislators in states like Minnesota.  Yet CC remains a dangerous nightmare to urban dwellers, and our police agree.

In Wisconsin, a farmer named John Steinbrink, who represents Pleasant Prairie along the Illinois border, killed CC last year, changing his pro-CC vote to uphold Gov. Jim Doyle’s veto of the bill.  Steinbrink, a Democrat, will face little retribution from voters because of his sudden switch, making this story no profile in courage. Although a natural supporter of concealed carry because of his rural roots, his state Assembly district has changed quite a bit in the 12 years he’s held the seat. Pleasant Prairie is now overrun by Illinois developers and growing faster than any area in the state. It’s populated by folks who watch Chicago television and have very little interest in the values of the Republican Party of Wisconsin or the NRA.

Yet still, there is the vocal minority. Steinbrink’s wife received threatening phone calls at home from concealed carry supporters after her husband flipped his vote. Why? So some idiot can shoot coyotes on Chewaukee Prairie and feel sanctioned by the state, even though his or her neighbors feel threatened by such activities? The Steinbrink’s filed a police report. Although concealed carry was defeated as law, it created extra police work in the state.

It's completely unreasonable for a special interest group, the NRA, to foist CC on states all for the narrow agenda of promoting gun culture, expanding membership and increasing gun sales, which also serves the membership organization and its interests.  The NRA, however, is such a strong, persistent and organized lobby that they've succeeded with CC despite their inability to prove their arguments (deterrent the main one). Recalling the NRA’s crazy push for assault rifles in the 1990’s, it's possible that concealed carry sounds reasonable and harmless by comparison. Whether or not there is a sense of relief about this kinder, gentler NRA, what the group tells legislators and voters about urban areas is pure bullshit in every sense.

Nobody's going to have shootouts with rapists and muggers under concealed carry. That's strictly illegal. What we would get in Milwaukee is an assembly line of government signs telling CC permit holders that they can’t bring their guns into hundreds of buildings and public places. The result is government being forced by a special interest to intrude and regulate on a majority that wants no part of gun culture in day-to-day life.  Concealed carry is revealed, then, as the opposite of all conservative Big Government arguments.  Masquerading as a law that expands the rights of some individuals, CC infringes on the quality of life and general happiness of the majority.  That denying concealed carry is still somehow viewed as an intrusion by Big Government is an astounding rhetorical victory for the NRA.

If only the founding fathers had mentioned the benefits of owning big dogs. Or vicious cats.

Things are not going well on the North Side, where income shrunk in the last year or two or three, but if anyone needed an economic indicator to tell them this, they were fooling themselves. The North Side of Milwaukee is imploding fast.

We criticize the Journal Sentinel during elections, but in the last week, the daily newspaper has given us pause to think about what’s really going down on the North Side by reporting, basically and honestly, how badly things are devolving.  The stories began in the middle of last week with the private school voucher bus crash and continued through Sunday, when the daily reported that, yes, even state certified day care centers had succumbed to the drug dealing that is financially propping up the community.

Milwaukee is now #2 in violent crime spike, following Minneapolis at #1.  This was reported in the Twin Cities last summer.  Why it was left until now in Milwaukee is anybody’s guess.  (If reading the JS article linked above, please note that the daily’s reported definition of “The Boston Miracle” is plain wrong, a fundamental flaw in criminal justice and civics reporting that requires a post of its own.)

W-2 is a failure in progress.  Please note that any excuses given by the state in this JS article are far from valid.  It's time for Gov. Doyle and state Legislators such as Lena Taylor, Barbara Toles and Alberta Darling to reform welfare reform.

Another meltdown in the private school voucher program.  In the Milwaukee education market, the "choice" program offers the very poor some very bad consumer choices, at the expense of the good ones. Another state-created problem on the North Side.

Faces of rage in the inner city.

Can I get a witness? 

I am a witness.

Lawyers with the state Department of Transportation had never before heard of an instance in which a school bus driver was ticketed for driving a bus without a valid drivers’ license – until the Elijah's Brook God's Nation Children School bus slammed into a fire truck early Wednesday as the fire truck was parking.  God's Nation driver Carlos Mayes did not have the required commercial license for bus drivers – and no drivers’ license on record at all.

God’s Nation, a pre-Kindergarten to 12th Grade school at 75th and Bradley on the far northwest side, is in its first year participating in the state’s private school voucher program.  According to Journal Sentinel reports, the school has 50 voucher kids on its rolls –- and was set to receive a $125,000 payment from the state this week, but those funds were being withheld because the school still has not paid back $3,200 received earlier this year for voucher-enrolled students who never attended the school.

If God's Nation manages to somehow stay in the voucher program, it could receive as much as $325,000 in state taxpayer school funds this year.

God’s Nation, the daily notes, did not yet have its required teaching accreditation, but that’s okay – the program allows the school to work on that in the first year.  It’s like having a temporary drivers’ license – only there are no required "temp” certifications or reviews for teachers in the school, just a required business management class for school administrators.  It’s more like a temp bartenders’ license – the school gets to continue receiving state funding just as long as there is some responsible person on school grounds with education credentials.

The fact that driving down the street is more regulated than the private school voucher program was apparently lost on the administrators of God’s Nation.  They didn’t seem to think it was important to check whether or not Carlos Mayes had the required drivers’ and CDL licenses before they hired him to drive their bus – if they “hired” him for that job at all.

God’s Nation is one of the new schools that forced the expansion of the school choice voucher program a year ago.  It’s not that the voucher enrollment cap was raised to make room for Gods Nation, per se — it was raised because the rules would have forced successful, in-demand schools such as Messmer, a Catholic school, to cancel student seats to make room in the program for new schools like God's Nation.  This would have been extremely unfair to Messmer kids, parents and the school, which graduates 96 percent or more of its students — the type of success matched or bettered in MPS at Rufus King and Riverside High Schools.

The cap was raised, however, and Messmer retained its students.  God's Nation was allowed to open, even as Messmer turned new students away.  As illogical as this sounds, it works much the same in MPS, minus the expansion.  More resources could go to fund successful schools such as Riverside or King, but those schools receive less so that the doors of failing schools such as North Division can stay open.  King turns students away every year, but can't expand.  Now that God’s Nation, a K-12 school, is in the mix, the pool of resources available for King, Riverside and all successful MPS constricts first.  Then the resource drain hurts Messmer and successful voucher schools.

It’s madness.  In the case of God's Nation, the voucher program put kids at risk, and paved the road for a bus crash in the making.  "But parents chose the school," the voucher rhetoric goes, so the program's free market principles say it is the parents and not the program's school bearing the responsibility.

Of course, the free market consumer approach to education is incredibly flawed, as we were discussing at Watchdog a day or two before the God’s Nation bus crash.  Consumers can easily find out more about a brand of automobile than they can about a school, and are assured some basic standards in most product markets. Not so with voucher schools. In the wake of the God's Nation wreck, the public is learning that driving down the street is more regulated than teaching children in the choice program.

What is occurring in Milwaukee education, with more than a few exceptions — most of those being in MPS — is that very low income people are stuck with some very bad educational choices, just as they’re stuck with bad choices in the consumer economy. The injustice is that Milwaukee's controlled education market continually limits the good choices.

The lot for kids on the North Side of Milwaukee — the kids that the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program was designed to help — has not improved since the inception of the program in the early 1990s.  It’s time to stop pretending that private school vouchers are the solution and begin to critically examine the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program as part of the problem.

First, McGee himself had signed the recall petetion against him. Then, after Jordan filed the paperwork at the city Elections Commission, McGee missed a crucial Common Council vote on Mayor Tom Barrett's lone budget veto.  Aldermen overrode the veto without McGee (11-3), and his vote would not have blocked the Council, but McGee has no excuse for skipping out on his constituents on one of the most important budget votes.

By overriding Barrett, aldermen restored firefighter positions to ladder trucks that the mayor had cut to fund a pilot program to put cops in schools.  The Council, which had already approved 40 new Milwaukee Police Department positions in this budget, decided that MPD had ample funds to start the school safety project.

One would think that an alderman who represents a district in which a student was beaten to death outside of his school, in broad daylight at 1st and Center Streets in front of other students, would feel compelled to represent the school safety concerns of his constituents.  Does skipping the vote make more or less sense to McGee Jr. — who cuts himself in the mold of his father, the former alderman and leader of what he dubbed the New Black Panther Party – when it's considered that the beating occurred at afrocentric Malcolm X Academy?  There's no need to bother with his answer.

McGee, Jr., is worse than tiresome, his antics only trivializing every issue he involves himself with.  Local media aids and abets in a lurid, OJ-style symbiosis that makes mockery of it all, at once bursting and inflating McGee's small town persona.  We’ve been guilty of it too here at Watchdog Milwaukee. 

Nobody takes Jr. as seriously as they took his dad but, sadly, in 2006 Milwaukeee it's still easier to write about a McGee than it is to write the truth:  When the sun goes down, much of the 6th District deteriorates to a phantasmagoria of crack-infested alleys, heroin deals near the District 5 police station, angry faces and street maulings, prostitution and drugs, more drugs, gunplay, murder, rage and despair.

Somebody’s got to be alderman when the sun comes up, and residents of the 6th District can do much better than McGee.

He offered no statement yesterday after Jordan filed the recall petition (and still hasn't), but expect Jr. at the elections commission in the coming weeks, challenging signatures and somehow challenging his very own, defying witnesses who saw him sign it.  The 2,300 signatures Jordan filed are over 600 more than what she needs to force the election, and she does plan to run for the 6th District seat.  She won’t likely be the only candidate and she’ll have to build more than an anti-McGee message, as strong as that message is.

Vianna Jordan’s 10 Reasons to Recall Ald. Michael McGee, Jr.

1. Has become an embarrassment to our community
2. Perjured himself in court about an illicit affair with mother of his child
3. Arrested on charges of resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and threatening to kill a woman
4. Aide arrested for possession of guns, drugs and open alcohol
5. Used slurs and epithets against LGBT community; unbecoming of a role model
6. Has shamefully earned the public reputation of a scofflaw
7. Lacks the rapport and leadership skills to be an effective leader
8. Refers constituents to disreputable cronies in a conspiratorial hoax/scam
9. Fraudulent use of alias names to avoid responsibility for accident damages
10. Used constituent organizations to rally in defense of a shameful act

The Feingold essay, published at huffingtonpost.com, elicited cheers and thank you's, amid pleas for Feingold to change his mind about deciding not to run for the 2008 presidential nomination.  The applause was peppered with the usual finger-wagging from Dems near the center, cautioning Feingold to think of 2008 and let the moderates in the party do the leading.

And there was Feingold again last week, introducing “tri-partisan” legislation to extend the life of the Iraq reconstruction inspector-general.  Standing next to Feingold at the press conference was Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut Democrat defeated in his own primary but sent to Washington as an Independent by Republican voters (hence Feingold’s “tri-partisan” quip).  Lieberman will be chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.  Feingold himself was left on the sideline as the Senate Dem leadership handed out by seniority the 2007-08 committee chairmanships.

Then came a heap of exit poll data and a spin from Washington analysts at Time Magazine about 2006 being “an issueless election.”

Issueless election?  In the House of Representatives, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (California) tried to make an anti-war statement by backing Iraq war critic John Murtha (Penn.) for House Majority Leader, bucking Steny Hoyer (Maryland), the Dems' current House whip.  Hoyer did prevail, after some hand wringing from conventional wisdom Washington insiders that Pelosi – in trying to take a stand on Iraq – was driving the bus of the Democratic victory over a cliff.

By the end of last week – still the first Washington week after the election – that bastion of New Democrat wisdom, The New Republic, reported on a plot to oust Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.  Apparently, Clinton strategist James Carville thinks Dean’s 50-state strategy ran counter to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s more targeted strategy.  Carville thinks that the Dems could have cherry-picked a dozen more seats if Dean hadn’t seeded money all over the country.  But what Carville’s Blue Dog Democrats, the Democratic Leadership Council centrists led by Hillary Clinton, are really concerned about is that Dean may prevent them from triangulating (oozing) toward the soft middle of American politics.

In Wisconsin, where months of unity and hard work by state Democrats won the Green Bay-Fox Valley 8th Congressional District for Dr. Steve Kagen, where health care reform played a major role in state Senate races, and where women didn’t want Mark Green involved in their health care decisions, we realize that much of what happens in Washington doesn’t have much to do with us.

But what has happened in our nation’s capitol is this: As soon as Republican George Allen conceded to Democrat Jim Webb in a neck-and-neck race Virginia, giving Dems a 51-49 majority in the US Senate, the Blue Dogs-New D-DLC began laying claim to the Nov. 7 victory.  Yes, the "Southern Strategy" we’ve all heard so much about finally worked in Virginia (third time’s the charm) and the late result of Webb's victory tipped full control of Congress to the Democrats.  Now the progressives who built the populist wave that toppled the Republicans are being asked to sit at the back of the bus and let the Blue Dog-New D-DLC moderates drive.

In response to these developments, we at Watchdog Milwaukee hereby propose a new handle for progressive Democrats who stand strong and refuse to ignore the will of the American people: Swiss Cheese Democrats.  The inspiration, of course, is Russ Feingold, who, in deciding not to run for president, issued the following statement:

“While I've certainly enjoyed the repeated comments or buttons saying, ‘Run Russ Run’, or ‘Russ in '08’, I often felt that if a piece of Wisconsin swiss cheese had taken the same positions I've taken, it would have elicited the same standing ovations. This is because the hunger for progressive change we feel is obviously not about me but about the desire for a genuinely different Democratic Party that is ready to begin to reverse the 25 years of growing extremism we have endured.”

The machinations of the past week have revealed again how easily the Blue Dog-New D-DLC Washingtonians can, in Feingold’s words, “suck the populism out of the party.”

Russ Feingold simply cannot run for president under these conditions.  If he leaves Washington for more than a day or two, the Democratic Party he returns to just might be as formless, malleable and hole-pocked as that piece of Wisconsin swiss cheese.  Without the Swiss Cheese-D ovations.

Watchdog Extra:  Feingold discussed the DLC and its “kingmaker” role in Democratic presidential politics in an interview I published a couple of years ago after he voted against the USA Patriot Act. The interview – “Patriot Games” – is filled with candid observations from Feingold, including the above comment on Democratic Party populism.  Read all about it here at Watchdog Milwaukee.

The horses just kept coming.

The rate of pay for a janitor in oil-rich Houston’s business district is $5.15 an hour — $20 a day – a wage that would be illegal in Wisconsin, where a janitor in downtown Milwaukee starts at nearly double the Houston wage.  Oil giant Chevron, downtown Houston’s corporate leader, posted $14 billion in profits last year and, in one minute, makes more than the entire annual earnings of all of Houston’s 5,300 janitors.

Houston janitors went on strike 25 days ago, fighting for higher wages and health insurance as they negotiate their first union contract as members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which organized the janitors last year.  In the thick of the fray are four Milwaukeeans: SEIU janitors Heberto Figueroa, Josue Rivera and Juan Becerra, and SEIU Local 1-Wisconsin field rep. Dave Somerscales, also a Watchdog Milwaukee contributor.

The janitors and Local 1 are up against skinflint cleaning companies such as One Source and American Building Maintenance (both contracting in the Milwaukee market) and some of America’s richest corporations – Chevron and JP Morgan/Chase to name two – that have padded their profits by creating and exploiting one of the lowest wage markets in the US.

This week, the union escalated the campaign with a series of civil actions to call on corporate Houston to intervene to end the strike. On Wednesday, 14 organizers handcuffed themselves to the entrance of Chevron’s office complex as part of a national Day of Action and were arrested.
Click here to view Dave's on-scene YouTube video. 

Somerscales was arrested with 11 other organizers and charged with a Class B Misdemeanor in the union’s first civil action two weeks ago and will be in Houston municipal court today.

"This is about changing an entire market," Somerscales said from a Houston hotel room.  "What we're seeing is that the companies that created the market don't want it to change."

To this end, the building owners and the cleaning companies have pointed the finger of blame at each other.  The cleaning contractors say the building owners have tied their hands and won’t tolerate higher pay standards in the market.  Chevron, JP Morgan/Chase and other building operators say the dispute is between the union and the cleaning contractors, and it’s not their problem.  

The majority of the Houston cleaners are Mexican immigrants.

"This is also about immigrant workers not accepting the slave wages they’ve been paid for years,” Somerscales said.  "These companies thought the workers would be good, quiet brown people and go on cleaning the buildings [after their wage demands were not met].  But that's over.  The workers will never go back to those days."

UPDATE 11/19:  46 people were arrested in Thursday's protest as tensions escalate in Houston. SEIU is planning a national action day to build support for the janitors, whose struggle for better pay and health insurance has exposed Houston as one of the worst poverty wage markets in the US. As the strike enters its fifth week, SEIU Local 1 President Tom Balanoff, lead negotiator for the janitors, is calling on "Houston’s building owners and managers to use their power to settle the strike and commit to using only responsible cleaning firms willing to help janitors and their families rise out of poverty."

Apparently, Harley-Davidson workers are voting again today on the company's plans to expand in the Milwaukee area and create 120 new jobs. I was confused. When Mark Green ran for governor, he told me that Gov. Jim Doyle had chased those jobs out of state.

Sometimes TV news gets things wrong, so I waited until morning and checked the business section of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to see if it was true. It turns out that print media also thinks there is a vote on the Harley expansion today. Mark Green, how can this be?

The union has to vote on Harley's plans because Harley, which is turning record profits and prides itself on being a great place to work, wants to save money on the backs of its future workers. Harley doesn’t want the new jobs to be subject to its collectively bargained wage scale, which requires an okay from the union. The union, Local 2-209 represents about 1,600 workers, who overwhelmingly rejected Harley's initial plan, which had some workers set to make $10 an hour. I was surprised to read about the workers’ voting down the expansion. Mark Green told me that Jim Doyle was responsible for the initial Harley deal going bad.

No good union will support a two-tier structure of wages or benefits, which entails selling out future workers while maintaining at least status quo for workers of today. This sort of thing comes up often at bargaining, and unions have to be prepared to walk away from benefits offered current workers, hold the line and negotiate for the future. But this isn't a collectively bargaining situation yet, and Harley's got Local 2-209 over a barrel. This is Harley’s final offer. Reject the deal and Harley moves its new jobs out of state, where they can pay workers much less and the union can't collectively bargain the new positions. Either way, the union's bargaining position in the future will be weakened, but if workers accept the deal today, the new employees will make $20 an hour after one year, according to Journal Sentinel.

It's not a perfect world nor is it the perfect offer, but it's a show of commitment from Harley. We need those jobs in Milwaukee – jobs that Mark Green told me were already gone.

It occurs to me that it’s good for the state and good for Milwaukee that Mark Green lost to Jim Doyle last Tuesday. Either Mark Green didn't have a grasp on what was going on at Harley — and it's important for a governor to understand what's happening in the job economy — or he was just lying to me.

Let's hope the conscience and common sense of the national Democratic Party did not walk out of the race with him. 

Sen. Russ Feingold officially dropped his consideration of a presidential run Saturday, saying in a letter to his Progressive Patriots network that he had "decided to continue my role as Wisconsin's Junior Senator in the U.S. Senate and not to seek the Democratic nomination for President in 2008."

Feingold said he believed he could accomplish more advancing a progressive agenda in the Senate, where he goes to work in January with 14 years of seniority and for the first time a member of the majority party. His Progressive Patriots Fund will remain active in the efforts to increase the Congressional gains made Nov. 7 and elect a Democratic president, he said.

However, in a not-too-thinly veiled reference to leading Democrats preparing to run at the nomination (Hillary Clinton and John Edwards to name two) Feingold mentioned that he "would strongly prefer that our nominee in 2008 be someone who had the judgment to oppose the Iraq war from the beginning …"

Feingold was one of 23 Senators who voted against going to war in 2002. Clinton and Edwards voted with the Bush Administration, changing their positions as the war dragged on and became increasingly unpopular with the American public. Feingold, unafraid to challenge Bush-Cheney in the shadow of 9/11, cast the only Senate vote against the USA Patriot Act, leading a successful filibuster last year to block its renewal.

Feingold publicized his decision not to run on the eve of his 1,000th listening session with Wisconsin voters, set today in Racine. It's a fitting place to celebrate how much has changed since he took his stands against the Patriot Act and the war. Racine voters overwhelmingly approved Nov. 7 referendums to end the war in Iraq and to provide comprehensive health care reform in Wisconsin. Racine also sent a health care reform Democrat to the state Senate, in Rep. John Lehman.

On the campaign trail across the country this year, Feingold said he found a "hunger for progressive change" and a need for "a strong, principled Democratic party that is willing to replace timidity with taking the risks of promoting a platform of bold solutions to our nation's problems."

But the ovations that greeted him were calls for change in the party, he said, not affirmation of a presidential cult of personality.

"I often felt that if a piece of Wisconsin swiss cheese had taken the same positions I've taken, it would have elicited the same standing ovations," Feingold said.

When the US Senate reconvenes in January, the Democratic majority will appoint new committee chairmanships.  It's likely that Feingold could be appointed chairman of the Senate Judiciary or the Intelligence committees. For Feingold, often found leading Democrats on constitutional law and civil liberties issues, the Judiciary chairmanship would be a plum. He may have hinted at such possibilities in his letter Saturday when he listed his four committee posts, noting that he could best advance the progressive agenda "as a Senator with significant seniority."

Below is Feingold's statement to Progressive Patriots on his decision:

"Like many Americans, I am excited by the results of the November 7^th election. My fourteen years in the Senate have been the greatest privilege of my life and I am extremely pleased with what we have accomplished. During so much of that time, however, we Democrats have not only been in the minority but have often been so deeply mired there that my role has often been to block bad ideas or to simply dissent. That is a very important role but I relish the thought that in this new Congress we can start, not only to undo much of the damage that one-party rule has done to America, we can actually advance progressive solutions to such major issues as guaranteed healthcare, dependence on oil, and our unbalanced trade policies. The Senate of the 110^th Congress could also well be a place of greater bi-partisan opportunities for change; something I am very proud to have been effective at in both Republican and Democratic Senates.

I hope all of you know how much I have appreciated the incredible response you have given me and the efforts of our Progressive Patriots Fund since January, 2005. In addition to all of our work in Wisconsin and D.C., I have traveled to seventeen states trying to promote the election of progressive Democrats in all states. At every stop from Birmingham, Alabama to Burlington, Vermont, to Ft. Dodge, Iowa, to Las Vegas, Nevada, people have agreed with my view that we need to stand up for a strong, principled Democratic party that is willing to replace timidity with taking the risks of promoting a platform of bold solutions to our nation's problems. Unfailingly, people responded well to my positions:  opposition to the Iraq war; calling for a timeline to redeploy our troops from Iraq so we can focus on those who attacked us on September 11^th, 2001; my opposition to the flawed provisions of the USA Patriot Act that threaten the freedoms of law-abiding Americans; my call for accountability for the Administration's arrogant disregard for the law especially with regard to illegal wiretapping; fighting for fiscal responsibility including tough common sense budget rules that will help end the reckless policies that have heaped a mountain of debt on our children and grandchildren; as well as my strong belief in guaranteed healthcare for all Americans and substantial investment in alternative energy sources and technologies.

Yet, while I've certainly enjoyed the repeated comments or buttons saying, "Run Russ Run", or "Russ in '08", I often felt that if a piece of Wisconsin swiss cheese had taken the same positions I've taken, it would have elicited the same standing ovations. This is because the hunger for progressive change we feel is obviously not about me but about the desire for a genuinely different Democratic Party that is ready to begin to reverse the 25 years of growing extremism we have endured.

I'm sure a campaign for President would have been a great adventure and helpful in advancing a progressive agenda. At this time, however, I believe I can best advance that progressive agenda as a Senator with significant seniority in the new Senate serving on the Foreign Relations, Intelligence, Judiciary and Budget Committees. Although I have given it a lot of thought, I cannot muster the same enthusiasm for a race for President while I am trying simultaneously to advance our agenda in the Senate. In other words, if I really wanted to run for President, regardless of the odds or other possible candidates, I would do so. However, to put my family and all of my friends and supporters through such a process without having a very strong desire to run, seems inappropriate to me. And, yes, while I would strongly prefer that our nominee in 2008 be someone who had the judgment to oppose the Iraq war from the beginning, I am prepared to work as hard as I can through the Progressive Patriots Fund, and consistent with my duties in the Senate, to maintain or increase our gains from November 7 in the Congress and, of course, to elect a Democrat as President in 2008.

Most important, I want to continue my work as a Senator from this wonderful State of Wisconsin. Our fourteen year ongoing conversation that has taken place in hundreds of communities in Wisconsin in the form of open Listening Sessions is the principal reason I have been perceived as "ahead of the curve" on many key issues. Simply listening to the reasoning and passions of Wisconsinites remains the best source of good ideas and common sense I've ever encountered.

I love this country very much and am so lucky to be able to serve it in the United States Senate. My heartfelt thanks to all of you for your support and encouragement."

"Marriage. Shall section 13 of article XIII of the constitution be created to provide that only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state and that a legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state?"

We’ve all seen the ad. Face of an all-American blonde, blue-eyed, curly-haired boy appears on your TV screen. He gazes up at the camera in an innocent close-up. “If daddy marries another man,” the kid asks, “Who’d be my mom?” Another kid comes on, this one a bit shorter and with brown hair. “I’m confused,” this second kid says, also gazing up at the camera, trying to look as confused as the other kid. But this kid’s a little younger and a smile sneaks onto his face. After all, this is just a commercial.

Those kids, my 14-year-old daughter says, are really too young to know what they’re talking about. In fact, she says, many adults don’t quite get this “Defense of Marriage” thing on the ballot today.

My daughter spent some time this summer volunteering with Fair Wisconsin, knocking on doors, working to help people understand what the marriage amendment is all about, hoping to persuade them that a 'No' vote is the right thing to do.  Voting 'No' vote means that civil unions would still be legal in Wisconsin and that domestic partners would be able to share health care and other benefits such as pensions. 'No' means they would not be denied the right to make critical health care decisions for their loved ones.

She says it’s important that life partners have these basic things because the U.S. Constitution says it’s against the law to deny them to people. If the couple happens to be gay, they’re out of luck if the referendum passes. Gay couples cannot get married under Wisconsin law. The referendum doesn’t change this, leaving gay couples only one option if they want to care for their life partners – not be gay. The referendum, she says, is just wrong.

But based on conversations she had at the doors, a lot of people are just as confused as the kids in the ad. In St. Francis, she found more than a few people at the doors who said, “I’m against gay marriage, I’m voting 'No.'”

“People hear the words 'gay marriage' and automatically, the first thing that they think is, 'No,'" my daughter says.

The people in those St. Francis houses were obviously missing something. Apparently they didn’t realize that marriage was under attack. They're as confused as the kids in that ad we've all seen.

The guy who wrote the marriage amendment, state Rep. Mark Gundrum (R – New Berlin), says all that voters have to do is read the referendum on the ballot and the confusion will end at the polls. That might be wishful thinking.

“I’ve read the sheet a million times but it seems no matter how many times I read it, it’s still not clear,” she adds. “The wording is too vague and if you don’t read it carefully, it could be expressed for either ‘No’ or ‘Yes.’ It kind of makes you not want to vote on it at all.”

'No' is what the law in Wisconsin already says about gay couples getting married. 'No' is what you vote when politicians propose senseless laws like the marriage amendment. 'No' is what you say to politicians who create problems where none existed, like the idea of the courts making gay marriage legal in Wisconsin.

There's a missing problem here, and that seems to be the source of all this confusion.

“When they get older," my daughter says, "those kids in the commercial are going to look back and really regret that their parents allowed them to be in that ad.”

“I think we can cooperate better as law enforcement agencies,” Holt said in a telephone interview days before the Nov. 7 election. “That’s what I mean when I say I’m a uniter not a divider. I don’t believe in pointing fingers. I believe in taking care of what my responsibilities are.”

That kind of talk leads us to enthusiastically endorse Holt against incumbent Sheriff David Clarke, and to encourage county Democrats to cross party lines and cast their votes for the candidate with the “R” next to his name.  Holt, 66, a retired State Patrol district commander, has the experience, qualifications and mature management style to transform Clarke’s helter skelter department into the competent law enforcement agency it once was.

Holt, a 30-year Milwaukee County resident, served five years on the city of Greenfield fire and police commission after retiring from the state patrol in 1996. Now in real estate, Holt was appointed to the city of Greenfield Board of Review in 2005. He is an active member of the Milwaukee County Law Enforcement Executive’s Association.

As commander of state patrol District 2 (Wisconsin’s six southeastern Wisconsin counties), Holt gained over a decade of experience coordinating efforts with local law enforcement, a key part of the sheriff's job. Under Clarke, sheriff’s deputies have been removed from their traditional parks and freeway jurisdictions as Clarke has tried unsuccessfully to assert gun control and tactical units in the city of Milwaukee.

Some of the fixes for the department are just plain common sense.

“Just to cite one example,” Holt says, “(Clarke) had people trained in motor carrier enforcement (regulations against large vehicles). Without regard for their training he has reassigned them to the jail. It’s a total waste.”

Other Clarke initiatives, such as the effort to hand freeway patrol duties over to the state patrol and the mobile jail unit leave Holt scratching his head. He calls the state patrol proposal “a political wish list” that will require the county board and state Legislature to change the law in the face of staunch opposition. He doesn’t offer a comment on the mobile jail, which has been parked in Ozaukee County for more than three months, according to sheriff’s deputies.

Under the watch of Clarke and County Executive Scott Walker, few functions of the sheriff’s department are running smoothly. The courts are dangerously understaffed; 16,000 violations were cited in the county jail; and the morale of deputies has hit bottom due to Clarke’s knee-jerk management style. Clarke is at war with the sheriff’s deputies union.

Holt sees a pattern of “bad judgment” that has marked Clarke throughout his career, from his firing in 1983 when he was a Milwaukee cop (Clarke was reinstated), to his decision to pour beers in uniform this year at a fundraiser (a potential liability issue), to the time he strolled into the jail holstering a loaded gun (an extremely dangerous regulations violation).

“It’s important to have someone who has the maturity and judgment to run the department, and the ability to work with people, not only within the department but with the chiefs of police and other law enforcement agencies,” Holt says.

We think so too. Vote Donald Holt on Tuesday Nov. 7.

Congressman Mark Green

The Doyle campaign fired back yesterday with an unusually long email highlighting Doyle's crimefighting record. A response TV ad from Doyle that will play like a mantra between now and Tuesday is sure to follow.  Effectively, this ends whatever chance Green had of winning the governor's race.  He has foolishly picked the one fight with Doyle he cannot hope to win, much less land a blow.

It's a fatal mistake by Green and his handlers, and it's more than that. It's yet another display of evidence that the Green campaign has no respect for issues or voters, and apparently believes they can say anything and still eke out an election win.  Down in the polls just days before the election, this foolish and desperate attack against Doyle looks a lot like campaign suicide.

Below is the release from the Doyle campaign, dated Wednesday.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:  "Doyle is Both Tougher and Smarter than Green on Crime" — Dishonest Green Ad Uses Data from McCallum Years to Try and Smear Doyle

MADISON – A day after the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorialized that Governor Jim Doyle “is both tougher and smarter than Green on crime,” Congressman Mark Green has launched another attack ad designed to distort the Governor’s crime record.  [Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 10/31/06]

Like most of his ads, it’s filled with lies.  This one even uses data from the McCallum years to try and smear Governor Doyle.

Of course, as a prosecutor and Attorney General, and now as Governor, no one’s been tougher on violent criminals and sex offenders than Jim Doyle.

“While Congressman Green was sitting behind a desk in Washington, Jim Doyle, as a District Attorney and Wisconsin’s Attorney General, was prosecuting hardened criminals, and putting them behind bars –sometimes for life,” said Anson Kaye, Communications Director for the Doyle campaign.  “Governor Doyle opposes parole – he led the fight to end it – and no one’s been tougher on sex offenders.  When it comes to law enforcement, Governor Doyle has walked the walk, while Congressman Green’s been little more than a wannabe.”

GOVERNOR DOYLE: NO ONE’S BEEN TOUGHER ON CRIME

• Governor Doyle, a former prosecutor and Attorney General, opposes parole and led the fight for truth in sentencing which ended parole in 1999.

• Governor Doyle appointed a former Milwaukee cop to head the Parole Board, and when he stepped aside, the Governor appointed another former Milwaukee cop to take his place.

• As Governor, Jim Doyle has signed some of the toughest sex offender laws in the nation, earning one of only two “A grades” in a survey of all 50 states by a leading community and victims’ rights advocacy group, Parents for Megan’s Law. [Source:  Parents for Megan’s Law 2006 Report Card] …

I think you get the idea.  It goes on from there, 11 bullet points in all and a Fact Check on the blatant smears in Green's ad.  To read the full release, click here.

A reader, commenting on our coverage of last week's 5th state Senate District debate, raised the question on the minds of many voters as they consider the strong challenge 'Tosa alderman Jim Sullivan is giving quacky Republican Senator Tom Reynolds: "How did Reynolds get elected to begin with?"

A look at the 2002 election that sent Reynolds to the Legislature reveals that residents of Milwaukee County cannot be held responsible. Reynolds lost the Milwaukee County portions of the district to economic development specialist George Christenson (25,462 to 25,428).

But thanks to some clever gerrymandering by the Legislature's controlling Republicans, the 5th Senate District included for the first time in 2002 wards outside of Milwaukee County.  After the 2000 Census, 16 wards of Brookfield and Elm Grove were added to SD 5's northwest Milwaukee/West Allis/Wauwatosa base. No matter how far out Reynolds' takes on important issues are, he crushed Christenson in Brookfield and Elm Grove, where he took home 71% of the vote and collected his margin of victory. The final tally: Reynolds 53% to Chrisenson's 47%.

How much did SD 5 change? Before redistricting, SD 5 contained thirty Milwaukee wards. Now there are 21. The 18 wards on the north side of SD 5, including two 'Tosa wards, were lopped off and the district pushed west into Waukesha County and south to include all of West Allis and West Milwaukee. Had Reynolds and Christenson run against each other in the old 5th District, Christenson wins.

The overt gerrymandering strategy of state Republicans has been to carve away at Democrats' Milwaukee stronghold while maintaining safe seats in the area. The notion in SD 5 was to make life difficult for Democrat David Cullen, whose Assembly District 13 was for a decade comprised entirely of SD 5's thirty Milwaukee wards. The gerrymandering gave Cullen the eastern half of 'Tosa (where County Executive Scott Walker lives) and five West Milwaukee wards to go along with 19 Milwaukee wards — but he kept winning.

The GOP did create a safe Assembly seat out of the west subdivisions in 'Stallis and 'Tosa and the Brookfield-Elm Grove 'burbs. But in giving away 13 of 'Tosa's 24 wards — 11 to Cullen and the two north wards to the 4th Senate District (Lena Taylor) and the 12th Assembly District (Fred Kessler) — Republicans gave the Dems a firm foothold in the birthplace of the John Birch Society.

Along the way, 'Tosa lost its popular, moderate state Senator, Republican Peggy Rosenzweig, now a regent on the UW System Board.

Prior to running against Rosenzweig in the 2002 GOP primary Reynolds' previous claims to fame were printing radical religious materials and twice losing big to Congressman Jerry Kleczka. Rosenzweig had bucked the party on the takeover of MPS, cosponsored bipartisan health care initiatives, voted pro-choice and even cosponsored bipartisan campaign finance reform legislation. In 2002, the hardliners in her party backed Reynolds and went after her in the primary.

Still, Rosenzweig might have survived were it not for Tom Barrett. In 2002, the likeable west sider was making his bid for governor; and on Milwaukee's west side and in east 'Tosa, many of Barrett's moderate voters were also Rosenzweig voters. Then-GOP Senate leader Mary Panzer, in an interview with Wispolitics.com after the 2002 election, estimated that Rosenzweig lost 2,000 voters to the Democratic Primary and Barrett.

"People wanted to vote for both, but they couldn't," Panzer said, noting that Barrett and Rosenzweig carpooled to Madison together in the 1980's when both served in the Assembly.  (Ironically, Panzer would meet a fate similar to Rosenzweig's two years later as the GOP continued to sweep the moderates from its house).

Rosenzweig lost to Reynolds by 971 votes, 53.7% to 46.3%, despite beating Reynolds in Brookfield and Elm Grove. The total number of votes cast in the Republican primary was relatively low for the high turnout 5th — only 10,555 compared to 16,036 cast for unopposed Christenson. This lends some credibility to Panzer's theory.

For Wauwatosa, Tuesday Nov. 7 is a chance to elect one of their own, Jim Sullivan, and reclaim the political power lost when the city was carved up after the 2000 Census. The 'Tosa alderman can expect to win the Milwaukee County vote by a larger margin than Christenson did, but to come out on top, he has to win the trust of voters in the western subdivisions of 'Tosa and 'Stallis and in Brookfield and Elm Grove.

If Sullivan does this, Nov. 7 becomes a referendum on whether the hardliners controlling the state Republican Party — by squeezing an out-to-lunch, bible belting home-schooler through the 2002 primary back door — have proven themselves out of touch with the suburban voters they claim to champion.

What's the difference?  Why are biomedical researchers at UW-Madison, where the world's ground breaking stem cell research began, much more interested in embryonic stem cells than in less controversial types of human stem cells?

According to the UW-Madison researchers, embryonic stem cells are important to medical research because "of their ability to develop into virtually any other cell made by the human body.  In theory, if stem cells can be grown and their development directed in culture, it would be possible to grow cells of medical importance such as bone marrow, neural tissue or muscle."

Human embryonic cells come from fertilized embryos less than a week old.  The more mature a cell gets, the more "specialized" it becomes and won't regenerate damaged tissue very well, UW researchers say.  Adult cells have "an inability to proliferate" and are "difficult to grow in a lab," they add; and adults do not have stem cells in many vital organs — which means only embryonic cells, which have "capacity to become any kind of tissue," can be used to repair vital organs.

Embryonic stem cells are of particular interest to actor and Parkinson's disease sufferer Michael J. Fox because diseases such as Parkinson's "occur because of defects in one of just a few cells types," according to UW-Madison.  For people like Fox, "replacing faulty cells with healthy ones offers hope of lifelong treatment."

Congressman Green's "votes have set us back" on embryonic stem cell research, Fox says this week in TV ads supporting Gov. Jim Doyle.  Doyle, Fox says, "knows the promise it holds and the jobs it will create" in Wisconsin, where stem cell research began.

These days, you can't blame anyone for thinking politics is little more than gamesmanship.  But there is such a thing as an honest, impassioned political ad.

Below is Congressman Green's record on embryonic stem cell research, with source notes, released this week by the state Dems.  The record speaks for itself.

• Congressman Green voted against HR 810, a bipartisan bill to provide federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.  [Source: HR810, Vote #204, 5/24/05]

• Congressman Green stood with George W. Bush when the President vetoed HR 810.  Green then voted in July to sustain the President’s veto.  [Source: HR810, Vote 388, 7/19/06]

• Congressman Green voted for or cosponsored legislation to ban or even criminalize embryonic stem cell research eight times.  [Sources: HRes214, Vote #300, 7/31/01; HR2505, Vote #302, 7/31/01; HR2505, Vote #303, 7/31/01: HR2505, Vote #304, 7/31/01; HR534, Vote #37, 2/27/03; HR534, Vote #38, 2/27/03; HR534, Vote #39, 2/27/03; HR 1357]

• Congressman Green backed efforts by Republicans in the state Legislature to ban embryonic stem cell research.  [Sources: 2005 AB499; Green Press Release, 11/3/05]

• Like George W. Bush, Congressman Green likens embryonic stem cell research to killing. [Sources: Green Press Release, 7/19/06; Green Press Release, 2/12/03]

• The stem cell "plan" introduced by Congressman Green last month isn't backed by science and has been panned by editorial boards around the state.  The Wisconsin State Journal said “Don’t waste green on Green’s scheme,” and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel called it “Green’s near-empty proposal.”  [Sources: Wisconsin State Journal, 9/8/06; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 9/8/06]

The very definition of state attorney general is at stake as Democrat Kathleen Falk, in her third term as Dane County Executive, and Republican J.B. Van Hollen, former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin, crisscross the state for votes.

Based on how the two candidates say they view the job, the Watchdog Milwaukee endorsement goes to the former Assistant Attorney General, Kathleen Falk.  She understands that the AG’s job requires a big picture vision of law enforcement needs across the state and has the executive experience to identify and deliver effective support strategies.  Falk, 55, has successfully managed Dane County for a decade and, prior to being elected, worked for 14 years as the state Public Intervenor, the assistant AG watchdogging corporate compliance of state environmental laws, protecting the public interest.

Not suprisingly, Falk is the candidate in this race who vows to fight for consumers and to aggressively prosecute corporate scofflaws and white collar crime, the type of crime that county prosecutors often say is beyond their resources.  She understands that looking out for the little guy is what the people want from an Attorney General.  That's the job. 

Van Hollen, 40, is a prosecutor who views the AG role as an opportunity to promote an activist agenda.  As a prosecutor he has a weak record with over 69% of the felony charges before him being dismissed or pled out.  As U.S. Attorney, Van Hollen has never taken even one case to trial himself and his numbers for prosecution are among the worst in the country, ranking the second-to-lowest prosecution rate in the entire country in 2002 and the lowest in 2003.  If ever there was a US Attorney who was weak on crime, it is Van Hollen.

Van Hollen, a Bush appointee, is telling voters otherwise in hopes of deflecting attention from his far right political leanings. Will he look out for the little guy against an irresponsible corporation, or will he look the other way?  He's endorsed by corporate Wisconsin's political action machine, the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, which ran a string of TV ads falsely accusing Falk of "harassing" businesses and filing frivolous suits as public intervenor.  Van Hollen's friends clearly want him to look the other way if elected.

The state crime lab, pedofiles and the meth epidemic

Much has been made of the backlog in the state crime lab in the state, and both Falk and Van Hollen say they will bring it up to speed.  The crime lab is primarily a support service to local law enforcement that requires the AG to lobby the state for budget funds and to effectively staff and manage it.  Falk is easily more qualified to work politically to secure the funds and to oversee management of the lab.  Her Dane County budget is $450 million, many times bigger than the AG's budget, and she oversees a full array of departments and services.  In stark contrast to depleted Milwaukee County, Falk beefed up the sheriff's department in Dane County, adding 87 new positions.  She also added a gang unit and expanded white collar crime investigations.

Tracking sexual predators and internet pedofiles, and fighting the methamphetamine epidemic are key areas in which the AG has extended support to local law enforcement.  On the predator issues, Wisconsin has model systems already in place. The new AG would be wise to continue those.

On meth, which we've written about on this site, use of the drug is rising in the face of reduced arrests and a change in drug distribution patterns.  Falk's plan combines tough law enforcement and federal assistance with a public health approach to addiction, a both-arms-working strategy that could revolutionize how we fight the drug war in the state.

Van Hollen basically proposes a continuation of AG Peg Lautenschlager's current strategy, recognizing that most of the meth in state is imported.  This has already happened, although Lautenschlager, inexplicably, has instead promoted the resulting reduced meth arrest numbers in the state.

In western Wisconsin, where meth has hit the hardest from over the Minnesota border, Polk County DA Karen Olsen and Iowa County DA Larry Nelson have endorsed Falk.

Politicizing the AG:  J.B. Van Hollen, legislative activist

Then there are the legislative proposals not yet on the books that Van Hollen says would indicate a political agenda and are not part of the AG's job.  He supports the death penalty as "an option."  Falk is morally opposed to the death penalty and wants to keep it off the books.  We're morally opposed to Van Hollen's stance, and his position does not support his apolitical rhetoric.

Falk would protect a woman's right to make her own health decisions under current law.  Van Hollen's position is strictly anti-choice, and he's supported by Right to Life.  He also backs the Republican "Defense of Marriage" Amendment that would mark the first time the Wisconsin Constitution is used to infringe upon basic citizenry rights, impacting gay and unmarried couples.  Falk is staunchly opposed to the amendment, saying it would "seriously endanger existing legal protections for all unmarried couples."

Van Hollen also supports the National Rifle Association's concealed carry law that would allow gun owners to supercede the rights of everybody else by carrying concealed weapons in public — a position almost universally opposed by law enforcement officers.  Falk wants to take guns off the street. The NRA supports Van Hollen.  Again and again, Van Hollen's position does not support his rhetoric.

Ignore the rhetoric.  Kathleen Falk is a highly qualified lawyer and politician who understands that the people of Wisconsin want an AG to look out for the public interest and be a champion for the little guy. The Wisconsin job calls for an Elliot Spitzer (the celebrated New York AG, soon to be elected governor, who won big cases against Wall Street and drug companies, and protected clean air by backing down the Bush Administration and power companies) — not an AG with a right wing agenda who will look the other way on the environment, consumer protection, white collar crime and corporate irresponsibility.  

J.B. Van Hollen may be likeable, but he doesn't appear to understand the role of the state Attorney General.

###

Written by John-david Morgan.  Publisher Jim McGuigan contributed to this story. 

The poll, conducted for OWN by Abacus Associates, a national survey research firm, asked 718 likely Wisconsin voters to list the top two issues demanding action from government. Nearly half (45%) ranked health care as number one or two, with health care the top priority for most.

The poll found taxes to be the second-most cited concern (34%), followed by the economy and jobs (34%) and education (31%).

“Health Care reform is on the ballot this November,” said OWN Director John Kraus in a press release. “This survey of public opinion shows that health care reform is a top priority for voters, and they want it to be a top priority for state government.”

But do the campaigns get it? The OWN poll found that more than half of likely voters (53%) are "dissatisfied" with how much they are hearing in these elections about health care reform. Only 35% said they thought they had "the right amount" of information.

Wisconsin health care costs have hyper-inflated 75 percent since 2000, making the state one of the most expensive in the nation to buy health insurance. Yet the race for governor has focused on sleaze and scandal — fair play in campaign funding, corruption, pay-to-play contracting and special interests. This week, jobs and the economy took center stage.

Rather than blame the campaigns, OWN pins the responsibility on the media.

“When a majority of voters say that their top issue has received too little attention, it brings into question the media’s focus and coverage of the election,” Kraus said.

Wisconsin Democracy Campaign is also criticizing state TV news and its vaccum of political coverage even as news programming is framed by negative political ads. Media, in turn, blames the mudslinging machines set to full throttle by the campaigns.

OWN's health care/blame-the-media press release was largely ignored by media Tuesday (Journal Sentinel posted a brief on its All Politics Watch minus the blame angle). When OWN repackaged its media release the next day to reveal that their poll put Doyle in front of Green 47% to 41%, they fared no better in Milwaukee. Another All Politics brief.

On the streets today, the Journal Sentinel main does feature a story on polling, but talks about the new Wisconsin Public Radio/St. Norbert's College poll, which puts Doyle up 51% – 38%. That poll is contrasted with the Wall Street Journal/Zogby online poll, which has Doyle in the lead 47.4% – 45.6%. There is no mention of the OWN poll.

One Wisconsin Now is a relatively new organization, formed in the last year to rebuild Wisconsin's progressive traditions, its mission to help connect the state's progressive nonprofit groups and their goals to issues and policy, to candidates and the voting public. OWN's conclusion on media may be misguided, but in its first major poll, they've proven much more compelling than the usual polling suspects that media turns to: the notoriously Left Public Radio/St. Norbert's or the notoriously Right Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI). OWN's polling is scientific, comprehensive and well worth a look.

Did you know that voters in the Milwaukee media market are much tougher on Gov. Jim Doyle than voters in markets in the rest of the state (jobs and the economy and media)? Or that nearly 60 percent of undecided voters in the state think health care is receiving short shrift in the governor's race?

Interesting stuff. And, with election day less than three weeks away, a potential wake up call for the Doyle and Green campaigns.

The numbers for Sheriff David Clarke in the black community are overwhelming across the board, beginning on Holton Street in Riverwest and heading west and north out to the Granville area and beyond. 

In Aldermanic District 1 (bordered by Capital Drive on the south, the Milwaukee River parkway to the east, running north to W. Bradley Road and extending west as far 53rd Street at Hampton) Clarke crushed Bobot in every ward for a 1424-678 landslide — 68%. (District 1 is Marvin Pratt's old District, now represented by Ald. Ashanti Hamilton.)

It's staggering. Vince Bobot creamed Clarke in the two roughest wards of Riverwest (215-104 for 67%) but once the election crossed Holton Street into the Harambee wards bordering to the west (McGee-Jackson's district), it's all Clarke (121-47 for 72%). The Clarke trend in the black community continues all the way to the 'Tosa border on 60th Street, and turns north and west to the city limits.

Bobot took the East Side and downtown handily. He won convincingly in his campaign's home base, Bayview Ald. District 14 (56%), on his way to winning nearly every ward on the south side. He posted a solid victory on the west side. He captured the southwest side from a very competitive Clarke.

But Bobot's margins of victory on the south side were not big enough to swing the election. Clarke got more votes out of single wards at Vincent (194) and Rufus King (166) High Schools on the north side than Bobot got in any single ward south of the I.

Republicans crossing for Clarke?  There were some to be sure, as reported, giving Clarke a slight edge in the county suburbs. But the impact of cross-voting was buried under the avalanche for Clarke coming out of the city's black community. Clarke's city of Milwaukee edge (2,600 votes) was the bulk (69%) of his overall margin of victory.

Yet another racially polarized Milwaukee vote won the day.

However, the Journal-Sentinel has not published the story on their website and it's not in this morning's paper, so it appears that what's likely happening today is that the daily is trying to confirm whether or not Bobot is, in fact, scuttling his plans to recount the ballots.

Bobot would have had to pay for the recount out of his own funds, and he had earlier told Journal Sentinel that his campaign is broke.  Bobot had also said he was considering running a write-in campaign in hopes of splitting the vote between the GOP's black Republican experiment in Milwaukee, David Clarke, and Republican candidate Don Holt, a well-qualified candidate.

We've presented ample evidence here that Republicans jumped party lines in the primary to vote for Clarke, lacking interest in the Republican attorney general's primary and urged on by right wing media's campaign against Bobot.  Helped out by a likely good showing for Clarke among black voters, it was apparently enough to get him past Bobot by a 53-47 percent margin.

Or was it? The city elections commission still has its originally "gliched" ballot-cast totals posted online. 

After a recount of the ballots, the city arrived at a ballots cast total of 46,548, according to the Journal Sentinel.  The votes counted in Clarke-Bobot came in at 35,182 (with write-ins). This means that one out of every four city ballots cast did not count in the highest interest race in the city — more people in fact voted in the sheriff's race than in the Democratic Attorney generals race, very suprising given the high TV profile of the AG's race between Kathleen Falk and Peg Lautenschlager. Bobot did no TV.

One out of every four city ballots did not count! 11,366!  We had thought this is what Bobot was trying to get to the bottom of with the recount, which would be included with the full county vote. He would need some 3,700 votes to make up the difference against Clarke.

If the reports of Bobot dropping the recount pan out, that means we can also forget any hope of a strong, high profile Bobot write-in campaign.  (He'd have to pay for media, one way or another).

Ousting Clarke may now rely on Democrats, progressives and independents being informed enough to get behind the Republican, Don Holt. 

The explanations given so far by the city of Milwaukee about why the turnout numbers were higher than the votes counted for candidates are as clear as a Florida election during a hurricane.  The ballots are being handcounted today.

There is enough evidence of cross-party voting to question whether or not some ballots that should have been excluded might have been mistakenly counted.

Sheriff David Clarke's reported victory over Vince Bobot is slim enough to warrant a recount.

Bobot should step up and call for the recount, if for no other reason than curiosity about how exactly all of the various voter equations Tuesday seemed to work in Clarke's favor — if in fact the vote holds up.

These were voters who identified themselves as Republicans in the party box at top, but when they read the rules below the party box (which are worded so poorly that confusion seems to be the goal) and started checking off Republicans, they were stumped when they found Clarke on the Democratic ticket.

But did people get new ballots and start over, checking the "Democrat" arrow and voting for Clarke? Or did they stick with their initial ballots and vote for Republican Sheriff's candidate Don Holt? Or did they vote for Republicans and Clarke and have their ballots thrown out?

Van Hollen and Bucher are basically interchangable (minus Van Hollen's campaign cash), which didn't give Republicans much incentive to stay in their primary. With 90 % of the vote in Tuesday, nearly 340,000 votes had been cast statewide in the Democratic primary, compared to 220,000 on the GOP side, reflecting a lack of Republican interest in the AG's race.

Outside of a few wards in the 23rd Assembly District (a GOP primary won by former TMJ weatherman Jim Ott), there was nothing else for Milwaukee County Republicans to do Tuesday — so they gave Clarke a boost. Coupled with a good showing among black voters, it would be just enough of a push for Clarke to hang on to hopes of keeping his job.

A strange equation, but one that's kept one of the most arrogantly inept and unpopular sheriffs in Milwaukee County history alive. 

A TELLING NOTE: Fox 6 reported election night that Clarke had received an early call of congratulations from none other than Congressman Mark Green, Republican candidate for governor.

Also conspicuously absent from the ads running for Republican J.B. Van Hollen and Democrats Kathleen Falk and Peg Lautenschlager is any mention of the methamphetamine epidemic that has swept Wisconsin in the last few years.  Western counties have been hardest hit, and meth has run rampant in the Fon du Lac area and other corners of the state.  AG Lautenschlager has focused law enforcement resources on the epidemic, yet, still, meth use continues to rise.

So why is AG Lautenschlager boasting an decrease in meth lab busts this year, after those busts soared in the previous three years? And with meth on the rise, she touts a 30 percent decrease in meth cases.

It doesn't add up, a problem for any AG who's asking for a second term — and it has not escaped notice.  The Kathleen Falk campaign issued in August a detailed, well-researched position statement on "Fighting Meth," presenting a comprehensive approach to the problem.  

The Falk plan involves bringing federal resources to bear by declaring western Wisconsin a High Intensity Drug Trafficking area, and treating the epidemic as a public health problem by setting up treatment systems through the courts. It's a revolutionary approach in Wisconsin still, despite years of proven success with Day Reporting Centers and other incarceration alternatives which have reduced criminal justice costs by reducing the recidivism that drives costs. The Falk plan deserves a serious look as both a law enforcement and public health plan.

Unfortunately, media didn't bite on the issue, and neither have the campaign handlers, loaded with ample arsenal to attack Lautenschlager without looking at her anti-meth program. As the Falk position piece points out, cracking down on meth labs doesn't address the fact that most of the meth is now being imported into the state.

AG Lautenschlager, it should be pointed out, is telling only half the meth story on her campaign website. While this may have escaped notice from most campaign watchers, it did not escape notice from law enforcement in western Wisconsin, where meth flows across the Minnesota border.  They're endorsing Kathleen Falk.

Polk County DA Karen Olsen and Iowa County DA Larry Nelson announced they were supporting Falk in early August, joining Kenosha County DA Bob Zapf and others who say they want a more serious approach from the AG.  Here's what Polk County DA Olsen said when endorsing Falk:

"Wisconsin is facing serious issues, and we need serious people to address them. I look forward to working closely with Kathleen on the issues that are important to me – and other district attorneys – fixing the rising meth problem, putting a stop to growing violence in our communities, and fixing the backlog at the crime lab."

And seriously now, this race may never have been as close as Lautenschlager's friends in Madison seemed to have thought it was.

The evidence suggests that Milwaukee education slipped unawares into this alternate universe some time ago (about 1993-4) and has remained there since, regulation and compliance supplied by the folks at our local daily newspaper, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. New evidence was realized Sunday, June 25, in the daily's "Crossroads" section under the innocuous headline "Residency rule's demerits at least merit a discussion." It was written by Patrick McIlheran, the daily's right-wing editorial columnist, who's made a name for himself of late reporting false MPS drop-out rates while inflating bad pro-school choice research.

In the editorial, McIlheran runs readers through a recent study by UW-Milwaukee education professor Mark Schug and Lakeland College economist Scott Niederjohn, who are out to show that Milwaukee Public Schools' requirement that its teachers live in the city is harming the "quality of education" in MPS.  Remove the requirement, get better teachers, the Schug-Niederjohn study concludes.

Who's partially to blame for the residency policy, in place since 1977? Why, of course, the teachers union, Schug and Niederjohn insist, and McIlheran eagerly reports. The union (MTEA), Schug says, has no incentive to get rid of residency because what MTEA really wants is to control the MPS school board. To leverage school board votes in low turnout spring elections, Schug says, the union needs all of its members living in the city and eligible to vote. That's why the union, though formally opposed to residency, Schug argues, backs down on the issue of residency during collective bargaining.

That's the world according to the alternate universe of pro-school choice and charter-based research, according to a professor of education at UW-Milwaukee.

In the real world, the teachers union has been vehemently opposed to residency since 1977. In the real world, school choice advocates such as ex-MPS superintendent Howard Fuller, ex-MPS Director John Gardner and ex-Mayor John Norquist publicly vilified the union for caring too much about residency throughout the 1990's. The upshot, according to its critics, was that the union didn't care ENOUGH about reform and the quality of education in MPS — because its priority was on members who too often whined about having to live in the city.

The union leadership, many of whom were working in MPS before 1977, could live anywhere they wanted, and Sam Carmen, et. al., were doubly vilified for living outside the city limits. By the late 1990's, the union talked about residency only when asked, and focused on progressive reforms in the schools, such as mentoring programs and other changes designed to find and retain top teachers and support young teachers. 

Add to all this the fact that the residency debate truly ticks MPS parents off. One of our most cherished parental choices is the freedom to remind teachers that we really don't want to hear about the residency issue. In the real world, it's a bit insulting and far, far off topic when it comes to the education of our children.

Back to the outer limits of the 2006 alternate universe, and residency is now apparently the fault of Sam Carmen, et al, for backing off on the issue and sitting idly by while the best MPS teachers left the system. In the alternate universe, the union can never do the right thing on behalf of students and parents — while anything that can be twisted to bash MPS, its teachers and its students, is researched and then explored in the pages of the Journal Sentinel.

How do we fix the system, according to Schug and Niederjohn's alternate reality? Get the state legislature to end residency because the union won't; focus on basics [back to hooked on phonics again]; expand charters [despite astounding failures in the program]; and expand choice to the middle class [in choice schools where nonunion teachers are paid less and have fewer benefits]. In the alternate universe, most roads and grants funds naturally lead to arguments for school choice.

Back in the real world, Schug really is a professor of Education at the University of Milwaukee-Wisconsin, the university within the city limits that trains many MPS teachers. If MPS really has too few of the best teachers, I think I know which classrooms at UWM to begin looking for the root of the problem.

In the real world, however, the grant funds to get to the root of the problem just wouldn't flow. And the Journal Sentinel and Pat McIlheran would never breathlessly twist and turn the findings onto the editorial pages.

Northfield, MN — Over the weekend, the Watchdog faithful were treated to a rousing Democratic convention in LaCrosse, brought to you live via intrepid blogging by Watchdog Publisher Jim McGuigan. Unveiled at the convention was a statewide platform to make Wisconsin work for working families, and commitments from the governor on health care and K-12 and UW-System education.

Viewed from the Minnesota side of the river, from a sunny chair on a backporch in Northfield, the state of Wisconsin politics in election year 2006 — and the fate of Gov. Jim Doyle — comes into focus with a look back to 2004: Heading into campaign season, Doyle is talking tough, and standing more like populist Russ Feingold than defensive presidential candidate John Kerry, unable to convince voters he knew what to do about the war or the economy.

Did the Kerry campaign ever "get" the Midwest?  Even as voters in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin put their shoulders to the Mason-Dixon line in 2004, setting the stage for a showdown in Ohio for the votes of working families, there was a sense that Kerry and the national Dem Party didn't quite get working families in the Midwest and their core issues:

Jobs, health care, taking care of family. 

Facing a tough reelection, Jim Doyle does get it. Coming out of the state Dem convention, a strong "Wisconsin Way" platform has emerged: Jobs, policies that improve the lives of working families in Wisconsin, progressive health care policies, and a premium on education.

It's simple stuff. Do we care about these values as a state, or are we more intersted in cynical election gimmicks designed to hurt certain families: gay and nontraditional families, hardworking immigrant households and African-American families in Milwaukee?

In Doyle, we have a governor who protected all of these values, held the line of property taxes and still balanced the state budget — in the face of Republican opposition. Is Doyle the governor Wisconsin wants? Or do we want a politician who takes his walking orders from the Republican National Committee and appeals to divisive special interests on the far right?

Again, pretty simple stuff, the kind of tough, good sense talk about values and priorities that the middle class and every Wisconsin resident working hard to get to the middle class needs to hear from a governor as they look to the future.

Doyle's opponent, Green Bay Congressman Mark Green, looks and sounds by comparison a lot more like an uncertain Kerry heading into campaign season. In Congress, Green voted against embryonic stem cell research, sponsored House legislation to criminalize stem cell research, and supports state law that would do the same in Wisconsin. Despite those votes, he's trying to distort his record, just as he tried to distort his record on Medicaid cuts last fall.

Green is ducking a lot lately. Once, twice, three times he ducked the question of whether or not he would pardon convicted former GOP Assembly leader Scott Jensen. Jensen's been sentenced to 16 months in prison for directing Assembly aides to electioneer on the taxpayer dime. It wasn't a campaign issue until Green refused to say whether he would pardon Jensen. It seems such a simple matter – but Green won't say.

So what does Green stand for? Not the common law that everyone else lives under. Apparently, Green thinks his friends are above the law. Or perhaps the state GOP, snide and arrogant when it comes to accountability, just can't admit to any wrongdoing.  The flap over pardoning Jensen, such a small thing on the surface, would point to the flaw that has crippled Green at the core: an appalling lack of integrity.

Clearly, the party of Wisconsin values is the Democratic party, a message Doyle delivered powerfully in LaCrosse. Jim Doyle is not Russ Feingold, who has achieved folk hero status in the state. But Gov. Doyle is standing and talking tall on a record that reflects the true values of Wisconsin working families — while his opponent disguises and distorts his congressional voting record and presses perceived election year hot buttons.

From where I sit on a sunny porch in Minnesota, sipping a beer made in Milwaukee, the view says it's a good time to be a Democrat governor in Wisconsin, running for reelection.

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The most high profile police brutality case since the James Schaumperlein beating on the South Side in the mid-80s has become a miasma of McGees.

Just two days before the McGees made their comments, I was writing that I hoped to find a new angle to help keep the Frank Jude, Jr., case in the spotlight — hoping that somehow the issue of Ald. Michael McGee would not raise its fool head to obscure the problem of police brutality in Milwaukee and what Justice for Jude organizing may be able to do about it.

Those turned out to be vain hopes, as the front page of the Thursday morning Journal-Sentinel revealed that McGee had been arrested again — this time at a restraining order hearing.

I then considered that one of the reasons the larger community of Milwaukee has stuck its head in the sand on police brutality — for generations — may have something to do with the chasms between the white and black community, space that McGee is all too eager to operate in.

McGee, in his own way, just like the cops who mauled and tormented Frank Jude, like Jude himself, is emblematic of larger problems in Milwaukee, of deep rifts between black and white that have never healed and only sometimes seem to grow wider and deeper. At a time when the overall outrage over the Jude case touched all communities in the area, the McGees seem out to make sure that no solution will be found but more rage. Milwaukee is tired of rage, the faces of malicious, racist cops and inadequete community leaders.

Rage? McGees, Bartlett, Masarik, Spengler and Jude, and now Glover and Prado — Theirs are faces of abject normalcy, in a way, a poverty of being average to below average in a rust belt economy where aldermen and cops and male strippers consider themselves lucky to have their jobs. These are angry, post-industrial souls in a city that has failed to find an economic place for African-American males.

It's a city too often filled with despair.

And it's a city that must end its tolerance of police brutality and work to improve police-community relations. But we can't get there from here in Milwaukee, not with leaders whose goal is clearly to throw fire into our longstanding racial divide.

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Related Stories Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel – Milwaukee Ald. McGee arrested in Tosa; he alleges racism

Wagner talked about the deep tunnel project of the early 1990s, which didn’t solve our sewerage problems. He recalled the county pension scandal and subsequent recalls. He said he didn’t want to see the Milwaukee Connector’s single rail electric bus system become a $300 million dollar boondoggle. If approved, he asked whether the was an issue where recalls would be necessary. Wagner might as well have called in the Citizens for Responsible Government, generally referred to on this site as Citizens for Retarding economic Growth in Milwaukee.

Later that afternoon, Barrett vetoed the council’s endorsement. Aldermen responded by hammering the mayor for lacking leadership and a 21st Century vision of Milwaukee. Common Council President Willie Hines put it best in today’s Journal Sentinel:

“It’s disappointing that when the City of Milwaukee had an opportunity to move into the 21st Century, this mayor is driving a Studebaker stuck in the 1950s.”

It’s hard to disagree with Alds. Hines and Mike D’Amato, who was also critical of Barrett for a lack of leadership on a project that has been in the planning and study stages for many years, and is just now at the preliminary engineering stages.

The Connector study looked at ways to efficiently link UW-Milwaukee, Downtown, Miller Park, with spurs to the north side. Single rail electric cars (wires running above) was the option of choice because the cars are considered more efficient than light rail. The feds would pay for most of its $300 million cost. Local government would have to come up with $57 million. Typically, investment for major mass transit projects such as the connector would come from the state, as Jim mentioned in his previous post.

Rather than go out and sell the project as the right ride for Milwaukee’s future and help find the $57 million, Barrett capitulated to the very interests that don’t want to see Milwaukee move its people and its economy forward.

The CRG recall gang, you might remember, opposed the development deal that will allow 1,200 Manpower jobs to move to Downtown. The business interests who made the Manpower move happen, Gary Grunau and others, also back the Connector.

County Executive Scott Walker, who opposes the connector, applauded Barrett’s veto. When Scott Walker applauds your driving, it’s time to get out of the car.

The Council could still override the mayor — they need one additional vote to get a two-thirds majority. Let’s hope they do, even though it would strike an embarassing blow to his administration.

The Studebaker belongs to Walker and the CRG, not to the citizens of Milwaukee. Barrett needs to park it soon and offer some constructive input about our mass transit needs. That’s what big city mayors do.

Former Acting Mayor Marvin Pratt, whose son was one of the four who copped a plea to the misdemeanor vandalism charges, said as much the day after the six month tire-slashing sentences were handed out by Judge Brennan. The judge had torn up the plea agreement under heavy pressure from Republicans to give stiff sentences to the four young Democratic Party activists who had agreed to the deal. The fifth defendent, who refused to plea bargain, was found not guilty.

“It isn’t funny — in the city of Milwaukee you can beat a man half to death and get exonerated, and here you’ve got four men who committed a property crime sentenced to jail,” Pratt said.

Joel McNally, in his column last week in the Shepherd Express, drew the same comparison, writing that: “Drunken white police officers who savagely beat and torture a black man may go free in Milwaukee, but young black men who commit acts of vandalism will go to jail.”

I’m not one to cry foul when the race is card is used, but I don’t think we’re doing the community any favors by mixing these two cases up. They are not the same case. They do not symbolize the same things about the city or about the criminal justice system. In fact, the tire-slashing case has very little to do with race — and everything to do with politics.

Is the political nature of the tire-slashing case & sentencing somehow unfair? No. Politics are at the core of the case, which involved Democratic Party activists — two of them the sons of two highly prominent African-American politicians, Pratt and Congresswoman Gwen Moore — poking holes in the tires of Republican Party vans. The plea was already in; all that was left was the sentencing, at the discretion of Brennan. Of course Republican talk radio screamed for blood. Brennan, a supporter of Republican candidates, gave them some. Six months is not a long time. Case closed.

The Frank Jude case, on the other hand, has serious implications for police community relations. I’m very surprised that black community leaders like Marvin Pratt and Tyrone Dumas, who works as a tech and trades school developer in MPS, are deflecting focus from the issue of police brutality by talking about a vandalism case.

This isn’t the first time black community leadership has done this in the Jude case. First, Ald. Michael McGee slurred gays in a Justice for Jude speech. A month later, the NAACP, in trying to bring attention to the slow Jude investigation, concluded that the justice system was racist because Mark Sostarich, Gary George‘s lawyer, got off with a lighter sentence in the OIC scandal. Sostarich, who is white, had cut a deal on his lesser charge to help convict George and Gee, who are black. It had nothing to do with race, however, and more to do with who did what crookery at OIC.

I know people want to holler about the Jude verdict. I know the criminal justice system has failed the black community, in this and other cases involving police wrongdoing, to say nothing of overall incarceration rates for young black males. Milwaukee has failed the black community.

But if we want to see some changes in police policy; if we really want to improve police-community relations in Milwaukeee; if we really want to get some citizen oversight of police wrongdoing; if we really want to see hiring and training reforms at MPD that could protect citizens from our protectors — we can’t holler in different directions. Black leadership has to help make sure we don’t lose sight of the Jude case, or of the problem of police brutality. The list of cases to talk about is a long, long list.

If community leaders — and media commentators like McNally– confuse the issue, we just give ammunition to those whites in Milwaukee who are all-too-ready to stick their heads in the sand when confronted by racism and justice.

This event marks the first time statewide organized labor has taken a place at the forefront of the movement to end the war. The labor contingent, led by David Newby, meets at 11:15 a.m. at SEIU Local 1, 250 E. Wisconsin Ave. (basement meeting room), and will March down Wisconsin Ave. to O’Donnell Park at noon to kick off what is expected to be the largest protest against the war in Milwaukee to date.

At last year’s protest, local labor leaders mourned the death of Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions leader Hadi Salih, who was tortured and killed by terrorists, his body mutilated, in early January 2005. Salih opposed the war and to the occupation, but had returned to Iraq from exile after the U.S. invasion to build a free and democratic labor movement.

On the Iraq Labor Tour last summer, Iraq labor leaders reported that the provisional government was as hostile to workers’ rights to organize into unions as the regime of Saddam Hussein. The stance of the currently-forming government has been no better as the occupation and brimming civil war plunges Iraq further into chaos.

“What we gained after three years of occupation are the lack of social services, power outage, and ethno-sectarian gangs hanging over the society,” said Samir Adil, president of Baghdad-based Iraq Freedom Congress in an open letter to American peace leaders this week.

“We strongly believe that the security and stability will not prevail unless the occupation is ended,” Adil added. “Therefore we are determined to boot out the occupation, and here we are today in spite of the hardship we are enduring, we save no effort to bring hope to millions of people around us and present our humanitarian alternative.”

OUT OF IRAQ NOW – THREE YEARS OF WAR IS ENOUGH
Rally and March
Saturday, March 18, 12 noon
O’Donnell Park

Labor contingent will meet 11:15 a.m.
SEIU Local 1, 250 E. Wisconsin Ave.

March to O’Donnell Park, east end of Wisconsin Ave.
Rally followed by march to Federal Courthouse

Featured speakers:
Gwen Moore, Congresswoman, 4th District
David Newby, President, State AFL-CIO
George Martin, United for Peace and Justice
Jason Moon, Iraq War veteran

Sponsored by Milwaukee Coalition for a Just Peace

Endorsed by: AFT Local 212, Milwaukee County Labor Council, Milwaukee Area Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), National Lawyers Guild-Milwaukee Chapter, SEIU Local 1, Solidarity, United Electrical Workers District 11, US Labor Against the War (USLAW), Veterans for Peace, Wisconsin State AFL-CIO, Wisconsin Fair Trade Campaign, Arab American Anti Discrimination Committee of Wisconsin, Casa Maria, Catholics for Peace & Justice, Grassroots Northshore, Greater Milwaukee Green Party, Marquette JUSTICE, Office of World Mission-Archdiocese of Milwaukee, Peace Action Wisconsin.

Follow that debate, with ongoing updates, here.

The Act defines marriage as a union between “one man and one woman” and bans legal recognition of any relationship “substantially similar” to marriage. In other states where similar bans are in place, gay couples with civil unions and domestic partnerships have lost health benefits and other domestic protections.

The stage is now set for the people of Wisconsin to decide whether they want to add the ban to the state constititution. Gov. Doyle has vetoed it previously, so this time it will go straight to the voters as a referendum in the next general election, the governor’s race this coming fall.

Gay marriages in Wisconsin? Not legal. Why are we talking about it then? Because the state Republican Party and the arch-religiocrats running the party think that bashing gay people is good for Republicans at polls. In other words, they think it will help them beat Doyle and win other races.

This is an insult, of course, to many Republicans, who care mostly about taxation and would prefer that the Legislature stay out of their marriages. Moreso, it’s an insult to the state Constitution and the US Constitution, which clearly state that citizens must have equal protection under the law.

Gay couples would lose equal protection in this state if it passes. They’ll lose health insurance benefits that current law allows them and which many private employers and insurers recognize.

The impact of denying legal status to nonmarried couples is far reaching: The courts in Ohio and Utah have ruled that nonmarried couples don’t have protections under the law in domestic violence situations — due to “Defense of Marriage” laws similar to Wisconsin’s proposed law, nontraditional relationships simply don’t exist under the law. It’s not rhetoric — it’s what the courts have ruled, as State Rep. Mark Pocan (D – Madison) pointed out during this week’s Assembly debate. Nontraditional heterosexual couples will also be denied legal recognitions.

How does the GOP respond?

A Republican named Eugene Hahn, from the town of Cambria, argued that Republicans are not mean and spiteful, they are just doing what the Bible says about marriage. That was really Hahn’s argument. Then he spelled out the word B-I-B-L-E.

If the people of Wisconsin approve this amendment to the state Constitution this fall, it will be the first time the state Constitution has been used to take away the rights of state citizens away. It’s obscene.

But they will also have the chance to make Wisconsin the first state to reject a “Defense of Marriage” amendment.

Lautenschlager was asked by supervisors to give a definitive opinion on the process of Holloway’s removal. Last week the AG delivered a less-than-definitive opinion and came under fire from all sides for further muddying the issue. Today, Lautenschlager’s apparently decided she’s said enough, already.

“The AG simply pointed out that Milwaukee County Corporation Counsel cited the wrong statute,” said a source at the state Capitol, referring to county lawyer William Domina’s earlier opinion that two-thirds majority County Board vote was needed to remove Holloway mid-term.

“This is all that the AG is going to say about this matter,” the source added.

County Board chairman Holloway faces a string of ethics charges stemming from alleged connections between real estate properties he owns and now-defunct W-2 contractor OIC. As Holloway has fought the ethics charges, a group of ten supervisors has pressured him to step down from his leadership role; however, this group is three votes shy of the supermajority (two-thirds) coalition needed to oust him from the Chairman’s seat.

Playing to both Holloway supporters and the group looking for a new County Board leader, Lautenschlager disagreed with Domina’s ruling but didn’t give the group solid legal footing to make a move.

Lautenschlager, who faces a strong challenge from Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk in the Democratic Primary for Attorney General, campaigned heavily in Milwaukee in February, including at various Black History Month events. Her involvement in the Holloway matter has left few at Milwaukee County impressed, while outraging others.

One Holloway supporter, Elizabeth Coggs-Jones, told the Journal Sentinel that Lautenschlager lost her support for AG, and said that would “ripple through the community,” referring to Milwaukee’s North Side.

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He was met at the downtown Johnson Controls facility by crowds of Wisconsinites unhappy with the overall Bush-Cheney agenda, and quick to remind the president that his administration is out of touch with the needs of working families.

The AFL-CIO, AFSCME, Grass Roots Northshore, Greater Milwaukee Green Party, Milwaukee Coalition for Just Peace, Move-On.org, Peace Action WI, Sierra Club, US Labor Against War, WI Citizen Action and the WI Democratic Party were just a few of the groups taking part in the protest.

“It is ironic that President Bush is coming to Wisconsin today to talk about his administration’s so-called energy policy, when the President and Republicans in Washington have done absolutely nothing to help families struggling with skyrocketing home heating and gasoline prices,” said Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Joe Wineke.

“Instead, Bush and the Republicans have done everything they can to benefit their friends in the energy business, providing huge tax breaks and government subsidies to the big oil companies that reaped record-breaking profits at the expense of the American people.”

While Iraq wasn’t on the president’s agenda Monday, protesters voiced the majority American opinion that an end to the war on Iraq needs to be in sight. The above photo, of a banner that hung Monday from a Milwaukee Street building in 3rd Ward, just blocks from Bush’s stop at Johnson Controls’ Jackson and Michigan facility, was taken by Jessica Kaminski.

Manpower, the temp services giant, wants to move its headquarters to N. Martin Luther King Drive near Schlitz Park into a new $63 million office building, to be built by Schlitz Park developer Gary Grunau. Grunau’s development proposal will be up for review Tuesday, Jan. 31, before the Milwaukee Common Council’s Zoning and Neighborhood Development committee.

The development will bring 900 Manpower employees from Glendale and Brookfield into the city, and another 300 employees over the next five years. These are good jobs, about 800 of them paying more than $30,000 per year and about 150 of those paying $100,000 per year and up, according to Manpower. That’s what Manpower alone brings. Grunau estimates 317 more jobs during the construction of both the office building and an $18.7 million parking structure, and permanent, prevailing wage building services jobs that offer affordable health benefits when the building opens.

As part of its jobs commitment to the city, Manpower will provide $100,000 toward job training specifically for the near north side residents in the Schlitz Park area, and has stated that hiring city residents in the coming years is a corporate high priority.

The project also entails plans to expand the Milwaukee Riverwalk and complete a public access frontage road along the river. Add to all this the intangibles that will infuse downtown beyond measure of tax base: Once Manpower has relocated, Milwaukee can look forward to all the economic good that having more than 1,000 professionals working, eating, drinking, playing, living and just plain enjoying downtown Milwaukee will create.

What’s not to like? Leave it to CRG Network to come to the aid of public relations exec Craig Peterson in a bizarre and wholly misguided attempt to derail the project. While masquerading as a taxpayer’s watchdog group, CRG will apprently stop at nothing and go well out of its way to undermine any project that will create jobs and improve the Milwaukee economy.

What’s the CRG’s beef?

They don’t like the way the Tax Incremental Financing zones subsidizing the project are drawn [failing to mention that the zones in question are essentially an existing zone and extension to it that are both tied to large scale and long term investments by Grunau];

They don’t like the fact that Manpower’s getting a city parking lot for its employees, who will park there for free [nevermind that the city gets the $18.5 million parking garage back when the 17-year lease expires];

They don’t like the fact that the city is chipping in $1.7 million to Grunau to spark the project [nevemind that, considering the magnitude of the Manpower move and all of the economic good that it creates for the city, and the fact that the city will more than gets it money back over time, $1.7 million is about the least Milwaukee can do to help this project];

And, in a display of cynical ignorance that defies reason, CRG spokesman Chris Kliesmet, in a letter to Council Presidet Willie Hines, calls the development “speculative” and has the gall to question the rates that Grunau will be charging Manpower as part of their lease [nevermind that the city's deal is with Grunau, not Manpower, or that, with the exception of the parking lot trade-off, this is a private development, not a public work].

What kind of conservatism is Kliesmet breeding over there at CRG? The kind that doesn’t understand the private sector of the economy?

The CRG is bankrupt, politically. The group’s mission is to retard any effort to improve the economy in Milwaukee, for no apparent reason except for the fact that they don’t want to see anything good happen in Milwaukee on Tom Barrett‘s watch, or in Ald. Mike D’Amato‘s district. Citizens for Retarding Growth in Milwaukee is a more appropriate moniker for these meddlers.

Where have we gone wrong here in Milwaukee to breed such contemptable humbugs?

For all of this, CRG Network and Kliesmet owes Gary Grunau and Manpower a big apology.
_______________________

[Note: In fairness to Victor Huyke, and the Milwaukee Citizens for Responsible Government group that Kliesmet and his gang left years ago to form their own version of CRG, it should be pointed out that Huyke's more responsible Milwaukee group is thus far staying out of the fray.

It should also be noted that CRG has finally created a political action committee, CRG$, after years of failing to file as a lobby group while doing nothing but lobbying various government entities and, as a group, sabatoging political campaigns in Milwaukee and Waukesha.]

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