Simmons on Barrett

James Simmons, UWO political science professor and faculty senate chairman, said his colleagues are largely embarrassed by Barrett and the planned visit.

Simmons said Barrett's fringe views on Sept. 11 are being used to unfairly brand Wisconsin academia itself as fringe.

"For most faculty, (Barrett) is an embarrassment," Simmons said. "And it seems to be coming at exactly the wrong time."

He said faculty support the concept of academic freedom.

"But I doubt there are too many people who share his views on the issue… I've got a PhD, but no one should pay any attention to me if I talk about chemistry," Simmons said.

Isn't It Ironic...

...don't you think?

Nelson Eisman, Green Candidate for Governor, forgets to put the 'Authorized by' ethics statement on his press release about ethics.

Not a real big deal, just ironic.

Barrett Invited to UWO by Local Greens

Winneblogo has a few good points why he should not be invited, and I agree with most of them.

I think this comment pretty much says it all:

Keven Barrett is a kook. Steve Nash is a kook too. Barrett is also a publicity hound, who desires most of all to be in the media spotlight. I haven't forgotten his sarcastic public letter to the Governor. Was that real academic activity?

If you want to have a real discussion about 9/11, invite experts, not crackpots.

We can make all sorts of accusations by innuendo and association, but these are not testable hypotheses.

I know academia hosts all sorts of odd-ball characters, but is Barrett really the figure we would choose to represent us?

Read it all here.

I agree that Barrett can say all he wants in his hired classroom, but the local Greens should find someone better to talk at their event.

Unless all they want is publicity, and not true discussion.

The Northwestern Agrees With Me - We Need a Dem for DA

Today's Editorial:

But the episode leaves the impression that it's business-as-usual in the DA's office: Strings being pulled, preferential treatment being granted, deals being cut, shortcuts being taken.

Both Pennewell and Gossett have pledged to move the office past the Paulus-era. For Pennewell and Lennon, and a lesser degree Gossett, that may be a pledge on paper alone.

The resume flap may be a small blip on the radar screen, but it's enough to raise worries that nothing's changed in the Winnebago County District Attorney's Office.
The Final Thought: The flap over the release of a resume of a candidate for Winnebago County District Attorney leaves the impression that Paulus-era cut throat politics continue to reign in the office.

How can we change this? I seem to have had an idea here - they just need to follow the logical conclusion:

“There is only one way I see to get past this shameful chapter in our county’s history. In November, the voters of Winnebago County need to resoundingly elect a Democrat with no connection with either Paulus’ corrupt office or party. We need a District Attorney with a broad resume outside of Paulus’ corrupt office, and outside of the Republican party.”

Go Joe Manske for DA!

Ron Reagan on Bush Hypocrisy

On stem cell research:

President Bush has made his position clear on a number of occasions: he believes even a fertilized human egg is an individual human life and that sacrificing human lives, even to save the lives of others, crosses a moral boundary off-limits to decent societies.

For the sake of discussion, let’s assume Mr. Bush is correct about the blastocysts being people. Further, let’s do him the courtesy of taking his position - no lives sacrificed to save lives - seriously. That’s his belief and he’s entitled to it. Here’s what logically follows:

No more wars, certainly not wars that kill civilians. That means no Afghanistan, no Iraq. Not even to save American lives - remember, that would cross Mr. Bush’s moral line.

Terrorism is out in any case, but so is responding in a way that leads to the death of innocent non-combatants. So, no Israeli bombing of Lebanon.

The death penalty has to go. No human enterprise is carried through without error; inevitably, wrongly convicted prisoners will be killed.

Unless Mr. Bush is willing to give on these points or own up to his contradictions, his particular moral objection to the destruction of unconscious cell clusters carries no weight.

He won’t. So there we have it: major medical advances are being resisted on moral grounds by a president whose own moral compass - by his own definition - is out of whack.

Quote of the Day - Stay the Mission Accomplished Course Edition

This, from Slate kinda says it all:

Tomorrow, President Bush will give the first of several speeches making the case for staying the course—his third such series since he declared victory three and a quarter years ago onboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln.

Why Frank Lasee Hates Wisconsin...

As usual, Paul Soglin has great analysis here.

Dems on a Rampage...

...and it is about gosh darn time it gets said!

Click here.

Libertarians & Greens, Together in Perfect Harmony?

Babblemur asks on his blog:

The real question is: where is the Wisconsin Libertarians, and should the Wisconsin Green Party and Wisconsin Libertarians consider joining ranks?

A quick look at the platforms shows that to remain as 'ideologically pure' as both groups claim/hope to be, it would be impossible (I am using the Libertarian Party Platform as a beginning point, as it is shorter).

Term Limits:

Libertarians: We advocate limits on the time any elected official may serve in office.

Greens: We do not support term limits since they restrict the rights of people to choose their representatives.

Guns:

Libertarians: We believe the right to keep and bear arms should not be infringed. We therefore oppose all laws which tax or otherwise restrict the ownership, open or concealed carry, manufacture, transfer, or sale of firearms or ammunition. We further oppose all laws requiring registration of firearms.

Greens: Not in platform, but I doubt it would be in line with the Libertarians

Unions:

Libertarians: We believe that state mandates, such as the Binding Arbitration Law, are unreasonable burdens on those who must comply with and pay for them.

Greens: The Wisconsin Greens support the right of people to form unions, bargain collectively, and strike if necessary.

Education:

Libertarians: Since private education is today outperforming public education at half the cost, we call for the phase out of all state and federal involvement in education. We therefore endorse "School Choice".

Greens: School "choice" programs should be limited to public schools. Funding competing schools in the same area may not be cost-effective, and funding private or religious schools with public tax dollars is unacceptable.

Transportation:

Libertarians: We support the maximum possible privatization of all publicly owned transportation systems and therefore oppose the creation of any new publicly funded or managed transportation systems.

Greens: Cost benefit analyses must account for the full social and environmental costs of all transportation alternatives and should encourage compact urban and suburban land use patterns to facilitate public transportation.

Healthcare:

Libertarians: For these reasons, we advocate the free enterprise system as the only system capable of making quality, affordable, individualized medical care available to all.

Greens: A universal, single-payer system for funding health care will be the most effective and will eliminate the "middleman" of the insurance company, which takes a large slice of the health care dollar. The system should be funded through state and federal taxes.

Looks to me like these guys shouldn't be talking to each other at all.

Moral Gymnastics?

Green: The fact that I broke the rules is an example of how c0rrupt the system is, and I am the only one who can clean it up.

How does he have the guts to say something like that?

Green: "State has lost its way ethically"
Gubernatorial candidate Mark Green said the Wisconsin State Elections board was “just wrong” Wednesday in its order to get rid of within the next 10 days any money in his campaign that came from political action committees not registered in the state and received above PAC contribution limits.

The Republican contender, after speaking in Oshkosh with the Noon Optimists club, said that the ruling is proof that corruption has reached the elections board and highlights the need to reform that agency.

“When we transferred our money, we actually asked the elections board how we should do it and we absolutely complied with every step they told us,” Green said.

Mike McCabe, the executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, said Green was in violation of an Ethics Board emergency ruling passed in January 2005. That rule prohibited a candidate from spending any contributions transferred from a federal campaign committee that would not have been allowed to be collected under state law. Green had transferred funds from his congressional campaign fund to his gubernatorial campaign fund. Wisconsin law prohibits accepting campaign contributions from PACs not registered in the state.

The rule was suspended by a legislative committee a month after it was passed. But the full Legislature never acted on the suspension so the rule was never reversed.

“This is a partisan corrupt slap that’s another indictment of how the state has lost its way ethically,” Green said.

I'll give him an A for spin effort, but he still gets an F for actual ehtics.

Lie-by-Lie Timeline of the Iraq War

This from Mother Jones is a must read.

Beyond Macacca...

Here is a great article about George Allen.

Barnstorming around Virginia in the re-election campaign that Republican Senator George Allen hopes will provide the impetus for his 2008 run for the presidency, he has suddenly been forced on the defensive. Time and again, he has felt compelled to explain that his mocking of S.R. Sidarth, a young Indian-American staff member for his Democratic opponent, as "macaca," or monkey, was an unintentional gaffe. "It was a mistake. I made a mistake," he told a reporter from a local NBC affiliate at a campaign stop on Thursday. Hours later, he told the ABC affiliate, "It was a mistake, I was wrong." On Fox News's Sean Hannity show, he echoed, "It was a mistake."

But was it an isolated "mistake"?

Only a decade ago, as governor of Virginia, Allen personally initiated an association with the Council of Conservative Citizens, the successor organization to the segregationist White Citizens
Council and among the largest white supremacist groups.

Osh NW Makes Inadvertent War Statement

This is the homepage of the Oshkosh Northwestern's website right now. They cycle through the stories on the front that they are covering. These two follow each other.

Obey on Iraq

If we get out tomorrow, it’ll be an absolute disaster. If we get out five years from now, it’ll be an absolute disaster.

-- Dem U.S. Rep. Dave Obey on the Iraq War.

Winnebago County Board Size Discussion Tonight

Details at Winnebago 17.

Winnebago Dems: Attend Republican Corn Roast!

Winnebago Dems: Attend Republican Corn Roast!
Republican Party chair promises long awaited answers from Julie Pung Leschke

OSHKOSH – Winnebago County Democratic Party Chair Jef Hall today encouraged voters to attend the Republican Party of Winnebago County’s annual corn roast after the GOP County Chair promised attendees could “get candidate literature to answer any un answered questions” in an email invitation to the event.

“We’ve been waiting for Julie Pung Leschke to have the courage to tell voters her position on any number of issues including ethics reform for months,” Hall said. “If voters are tired of Julie Pung Leschke ducking tough questions, they should stop by the corn roast and find out if she even has a position on government reform.”

Claiming she does not have the time, Pung Leshcke has refused to answer a six question survey on reform for more than two months. GOP Chair Michelle Litjens defended the Republican candidate in a letter to the editor in the Oshkosh Northwestern, claiming Leshke shouldn’t have had to answer the survey because it is ‘partisan.’ The survey was circulated by three non-partisan organizations, including the League of Women Voters, an organization in which Pung Leshke claims membership.

“Julie Pung Leshke is currently the only candidate for the 54th Assembly who has not answered a basic six question survey on reform,” Hall continued. “Perhaps tonight is Julie Pung Leshke’s chance to stop acting like a politician and start talking to Oshkosh about the issues that matter.”

“The corn roast will take place Monday, August 28th from 5:30-7:30 pm at Clayton Park on Larsen Road.” Hall concluded. “Don’t leave without answers!”