Tom Petri Encourages Corruption In Road Building...

During yesterday's debate, the House passed by voice vote an amendment -- sponsored by Reps. William Pascrell (D-8th Dist.), Frank LoBiondo (R-2nd Dist.) and Robert Menendez (D-13th Dist.) -- that would allow states to ban companies that have donated to political candidates or parties from participating in federal contracts.

New Jersey has enacted legislation prohibiting the state from awarding contracts worth more than $17,500 to those who have donated to state or county political parties in the previous 18 months. But acting Gov. Richard Codey vetoed parts of the bill pertaining to federal highway contractors because the Federal Highway Administration said the ban would tread upon the constitutional rights of campaign contributors. The vetoes have not yet been acted upon by the Legislature, and could be unnecessary if the House amendment becomes law.

Who thought that this was a bad idea?

There was little opposition offered to the amendment on the House floor, with only Rep. Thomas Petri (R-Wis.) speaking against it. Petri said the measure will waste money and time by forcing the federal government to police the political giving of contractors, many of whom operate nationally.

"It's eventually going to add to paperwork and end up resulting in higher costs," Petri said. He said New Jersey's corruption problems might require a federal fix, "but not at the expense of weakening the system for competitive bidding nationwide."

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-20/111052167462640.xml

It reminds me of something else he has said (In regards to Rep. DeLay's ethics violations - not to mention that large amount of contributions he recieves from road-building interests).....

http://jef4wi.com/6thCDDebate-Trafficinfraction.wmv

And never forget the classic....

http://jef4wi.com/6thCDDebate-Walgreens.wmv

Some Local Election News

...from the last few days.

Jane VanDeHey finally caught in a lie:

http://www.wisinfo.com/postcrescent/news/archive/local_20172792.shtml

In a rebuttal format near the end, Harris challenged Van De Hey for claiming to have a master’s degree in public administration in both a newspaper story and again in listing her credentials at the outset in her opening statement.

“You have not in fact completed that program have you?” Harris asked.

Van De Hey acknowledged right away that she stopped just short of earning her master’s and because of the job responsibilities “I simply haven’t had the time to finish it.”

A short time later, when Van De Hey indicated she had earlier referred to “studies in public administration,” Harris challenged her again that “you certainly implied that you had (a master’s degree) when you didn’t.”

“I’m sorry. I have two credits left and I’ll die (and) I won’t have it,” she said, trying to make light of the situation. “It will be on my tombstone and you can all read it.”

During her opening, Van De Hey said she had earned an associate degree, a bachelor’s degree and “completed studies on a master’s degree in public administration.”

I have seen this happen often. I was at a parade in Menasha where Van De Hey declared that she is a Democrat, and at meetings in Oshkosh where she has said "What we do in the Republican Party..."

At the Rotary forum, she declared that she has attanded all of the Soccer/Rugby fee meetings of the park board. I have attended every single one, she has been at 2 of the 9 or 10 meetings we have had.

Labor Council Announces Endorsements:

http://www.oshkoshnews.org/oshblog/2005/03/labor-council-endorses-bain.html

For Oshkosh Common Council: Bryan Bain & Meredith Schuermann
For Winnebago County Executive: Mark Harris
For Oshkosh School Board: Lee Wilson
For Circuit Court Branch 2: Scott Woldt
For Oshkosh Mayor: No Endorsement

I think this really is interesting. The candidates that seem to get hit as the 'Council Candidates' were just endorsed by the Unions.

I think it is obvious who really has the best plans for ALL of Oshkosh.

Ex-Marine Says Public Version of Saddam Capture Fiction

http://www.wokr13.tv/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=422B960A-26BA-4891-9E60-21C8818788D4

Watch the bankrupcy bill....

Krugman agrees that it is bad for America...

Warren Buffett recently made headlines by saying America is more likely to turn into a "sharecroppers' society" than an "ownership society." But I think the right term is a "debt peonage" society - after the system, prevalent in the post-Civil War South, in which debtors were forced to work for their creditors. The bankruptcy bill won't get us back to those bad old days all by itself, but it's a significant step in that direction.

And any senator who votes for the bill should be ashamed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/08/opinion/08krugman.html?th

Here is a good point on the display of the 10 Commandments....

Can you name them all?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7120284/site/newsweek/

Republican Disenfranchisement Continues...

UW-Eau Claire College Democrats: Voter ID Bill Hurts Students

“Many students already have two forms of identification, their student ID and a driver’s license from their hometown. Forcing them to find transportation to get to an out-of-the way DMV to now acquire a third form of ID for an address that will likely change in the coming months, will reduce the number of students who vote,” Caruso stated. “Republicans know this, and are throwing around the term –“fraud”- in a shameless attempt to keep students from voting.”

http://wispolitics.com/index.iml?Article=32728

Here's a great way to get rid of Wal-Mart...

and maybe get back some of our good union grocery stores!

The way I see it now, unionizing Wal-Mart is an even bigger win-win now.

Peeved Wal-Mart closing Quebec store

http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/index.php?ntid=30503&ntpid=0

Last week, for instance, they announced that they're closing the Wal-Mart store they recently opened in Quebec, Canada, apparently because the workers there had the temerity to join a union.

Another Great Reason to Recycle.....

I know I am not always the best at this when I am on the road, but I promise to get better...

The low water bottle recycling rate also impacts the overall recycling rate of all plastic, or PET, products. That's fallen from 53 percent in 1994 to 19 percent in 2003.

Plastics should be recycled so that less petroleum — a finite commodity — is consumed, Franklin says.

"The environmental impacts are in the drilling of the oil," she adds, noting that burning fossil fuel also releases gases that many scientists tie to global warming.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5279230/

Imagine: 500 Miles Per Gallon

It is possible now, according to Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria:

Here's the math (thanks to Gal Luft, a tireless—and independent—advocate of energy security). The current crop of hybrid cars get around 50 miles per gallon. Make it a plug-in and you can get 75 miles. Replace the conventional fuel tank with a flexible-fuel tank that can run on a combination of 15 percent petroleum and 85 percent ethanol or methanol, and you get between 400 and 500 miles per gallon of gasoline. (You don't get 500 miles per gallon of fuel, but the crucial task is to lessen the use of petroleum. And ethanol and methanol are much cheaper than gasoline, so fuel costs would drop dramatically.)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7037844/site/newsweek/page/2/

This is something to get behind - reduce our reliance on foreign oil and increase our demand for domestic farmer's crops.

Great blog post....

...Even though it is a made-up story, it is 100% right on:

http://www.thepoorman.net/archives/002789.html

Don't Blame Wal-Mart....

Robert Reich in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/28/opinion/28reich.html?th

Excerpts:

But isn't Wal-Mart really being punished for our sins? After all, it's not as if Wal-Mart's founder, Sam Walton, and his successors created the world's largest retailer by putting a gun to our heads and forcing us to shop there.

We can blame big corporations, but we're mostly making this bargain with ourselves. The easier it is for us to get great deals, the stronger the downward pressure on wages and benefits. Last year, the real wages of hourly workers, who make up about 80 percent of the work force, actually dropped for the first time in more than a decade; hourly workers' health and pension benefits are in free fall. The easier it is for us to find better professional services, the harder professionals have to hustle to attract and keep clients. The more efficiently we can summon products from anywhere on the globe, the more stress we put on our own communities.

The only way for the workers or citizens in us to trump the consumers in us is through laws and regulations that make our purchases a social choice as well as a personal one. A requirement that companies with more than 50 employees offer their workers affordable health insurance, for example, might increase slightly the price of their goods and services. My inner consumer won't like that very much, but the worker in me thinks it a fair price to pay. Same with an increase in the minimum wage or a change in labor laws making it easier for employees to organize and negotiate better terms.

Long time no blog....

Sorry! Just a few quick links and a sentance that I thought I'd never say....

Bob Hebert on the continuing saga of "Extrordinary Rendition" - yet anothe policy that makes me ashamed of my government:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/25/opinion/25herbert.html?th


The great Paul Krugman on "What's the Matter With Kansas" (great book!) and the debate on Social Security:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/25/opinion/25krugman.html?th

We have to keep fighting this!

And last of all - a sentance you may have never thought you's hear, but is 100% true:

"The new Willian Shatner CD is AWESOME." I picked it up last night and have been enjoying it since.

A horrible choice...

I cannot believe the audacity of the Bush administration (I am further amazed by this daily) nominating Negroponte for head of Intelligence. Here we have a person who looked past evidence of massacres in Central America - will he be place in charge of looking past the next WMD claims?

Write your Senators - I will be writing mine.

Here's some background:

http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=263

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6968346/#050217

I just finished...

"The Pleasure of My Company" by Steve Martin.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=ba6xKxLAO7&isbn=0786869216&itm=4

It is amazing.

A little adult, but really funny....

This Gannon thing is crazy....

Some Democratic Senators Are Now Reluctant to Push for "Jeff Gannon" Investigation

http://www.buzzflash.com/peyser/05/02/pey05042.html

Now, it is a little easier for Boxer to be a bulldog, because she did get the 3rd most votes in November of any American.

She is a safe Senator from A depply blue state. That said, I am glad she is there!

Too cool not to mention....

A pair of paintings from the famed series depicting dogs playing poker fetched nearly $600,000 at auction Tuesday.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6976660/

Krugman gets it...

...the Democratic Party is not dead and Dean is not a radical.

In fact, by taking on Social Security, Mr. Bush gave the Democrats a chance to remember what they stand for, and why. Here's my favorite version, from another fighting moderate, Eliot Spitzer: "As President Bush embraces the ownership society and tries to claim that he is the one that is making it possible for the middle class to succeed and save and invest - well, I say to myself, no, that's not right; it is the Democratic Party historically that created the middle class."

For a while, Mr. Dean will be the public face of the Democrats, and the Republicans will try to portray him as the leftist he isn't. But Deanism isn't about turning to the left: it's about making a stand.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/15/opinion/15krugman.html?th=&pagewanted=print&position=

When will we stop calling these "isolated incidents"

and call them what they are, systematic torture encouraged and condoned from the top?

Judge advocates - uniformed legal advisers known as JAGs who were assigned to a secret war crimes task force - repeatedly objected to aggressive interrogations by a separate intelligence unit at Camp Delta, where Taliban and al-Qaida suspects have been jailed since January 2002.

But Pentagon officials "didn't think this was a big deal, so they just ignored the JAGs," a senior military source said.

The military lawyers' actions had never been disclosed and are the first known cases of lower-level officers resisting interrogations at the Cuban camp that might constitute torture. Some officials called them "unsung heroes" for risking their careers by crossing senior officials who approved the techniques.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/politics/10889627.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

We find the same behavior towords prisoners in Afganistan, Iraq and Cuba. It goes back as far as when they stripped the 'American Taliban' and took pictures of him taped to a gurney.

Hoods and leashes do not just 'appear' in these prisons - someone had to requisition and bring them in.

This is a disgrace.

This is a great point.....

Most important, making energy independence our generation's moon shot could help inspire more young people to go into science and engineering, which we desperately need.

Sadly, the Bush team won't even consider this. It prefers cruise missiles to cruise controls. We need a grass-roots movement. Where are college kids these days? I would like to see every campus in America demand that its board of trustees disinvest from every U.S. auto company until they improve their mileage standards. Every college town needs to declare itself a "Hummer-free zone." You want to drive a gas-guzzling Humvee? Go to Iraq, not our campus. And an idea from my wife, Ann: free parking anywhere in America for anyone driving a hybrid car.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/opinion/13friedman.html?th

Stewart Rieckman makes some good points about the worst of our Oshkosh Blogs...

here:

http://www.wisinfo.com/northwestern/news/columns/stories/columns_19802842.shtml

However, I would like to point out that in my participation in these blogs, I have always used my own name. I have always provided links to the information I was referencing. And I backed up anything I said about someone with their acual words.

I agree with Mr. Reikman that there is a problem with nameless bomb-throwing, and I have had several lobbed at me.

I, however, am proud of, and stand by the questions I posted, the stands I took and the information I have provided.

All done in my own name and with the ability to contact me either publicly on the blog or privately via email.

When blogging is done in this matter, I believe it is a very usefull tool. When it is not, Mr. Reichman is right to call it "intellectual trash."

I know there may be questions about my Esslinger letter....

Here is why I care about his statements on minorities and women:

http://www.jef4wi.com/jefsfamily

Reverse Robin Hood in the White House Budget....

On one side, the budget calls for program cuts that are small change compared with the budget deficit, yet will harm hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable Americans. On the other side, it calls for making tax cuts for the wealthy permanent, and for new tax breaks for the affluent in the form of tax-sheltered accounts and more liberal rules for deductions.

The question is whether the relentless mean-spiritedness of this budget finally awakens the public to the true cost of Mr. Bush's tax policy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/11/opinion/11krugman.html?th

Paul Krugman for President!!!!

City Finances are in Great Shape

Editorial: Voters have chance to join winning team

http://www.wisinfo.com/northwestern/news/opinion/stories/opinion_19754478.shtml

This may be the press quote of the year....

"The issue here is whether someone with connections to male prostitution was given unfettered access to the White House and copies of internal CIA documents. For a family values administration, that's pretty creepy," said John Aravosis, one of the bloggers chasing the story.

The White House didn't return a call asking how someone using an alias was given daily clearance to enter the White House.

http://www.nydailynews.com/02-10-2005/news/gossip/story/279466p-239417c.html

Not Political - Just an Odd Story....

Kinda adult, but as a Rugby fan it is interesting and scary...

http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/16449119?source=PA

A must see....

www.tardart.com

If it won't work in the financial growth from 1940-today, it just won't work.....

http://finance.senate.gov/press/Bpress/2005press/prb020105.pdf


Today, U.S. Senator Max Baucus said that a Social Security proposal being seriously considered by the Bush Administration would have pushed seven million seniors into poverty this year, had the plan been in effect since the Social Security program began in 1940. Baucus is ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Social Security program. This information was contained in a new report Baucus requested from the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS).

Currently, there are 3.5 million seniors who are living in poverty in the U.S. The report indicates, however, that 10.5 million seniors would be in poverty this year if the plan being seriously considered by the White House had been initiated in 1940, the first year in which Social Security benefits were issued.

Baucus noted that, currently, about 10% of our seniors are living in poverty. If this proposal had been in place since 1940, 30% of our seniors would now be in poverty.

Great Quotes...

(Fun Stuff)

I have always said my favorite movie quote is "I don't want to die without any scars." from Fight Club (In my opinion, a movie filled with inspirational quotes).

Not a politician has come up with a quote just as good....

"Frankly, I can't get used to this face, and I don't think I ever will get used to it. But we are men and we don't make a big deal over our scars."
Viktor Yushchenko, newly inaugurated president of Ukraine, on living with a face disfigured by poison during his campaign

What a great sentiment overall. If you don't get beat up a little, literally or figuratively, have you really lived?

If you can't take it, should you be in the fighting sphere?

Private Social Security accounts not automatic cure-all

By M. Kevin McGee

http://www.wisinfo.com/northwestern/news/opinion/stories/opinion_19564971.shtml

Here is a great way to look at the fallacy of private/personal accounts.

I really think that we are not serious about our current national money crunch.....

"Thanks to aggressive fiscal and monetary stimulus, the United States is consuming about 6 percent more than it produces, resulting in a $600 billion trade deficit last year. To finance this extravagant overconsumption, America is in effect selling off claims on its future income, in the form of U.S. Treasury securities that are purchased by the rest of the world."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43145-2005Jan27.html?referrer=emailarticle