Will Summerfest Become a Free-Fire Zone?

Mayor Barret & Rep Richars make a good point here:

With the concealed carry vote looming, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and Assembly Assistant Minority Leader Jon Richards (D-Milwaukee) issued a warning to the public regarding the potential threat of hidden weapons at Summerfest, State Fair Park and other outdoor venues under SB 403, the concealed carry legislation for Wisconsin. In the bill’s current form, Summerfest, State Fair Park, and other outdoor venues would not be allowed to protect its thousands of visitors from the danger of hidden weapons.

Why?

Assembly Democrats offered an amendment to SB 403 that would have allowed Summerfest and other festival and concert venues from banning concealed weapons on their property. The amendment was defeated along party lines. The Assembly is scheduled to take up an override attempt of Governor Jim Doyle’s veto of SB 403 on Tuesday.

State of the Union Study Assignment - Health Saving Account Facts

From the Center for American Progress:

The Truth about Health Savings Accounts
January 30, 2006

According to news reports, President Bush will devote a significant portion of his State of the Union address to talking about “health savings accounts (HSAs) as a solution to America's health care crisis.” In general, HSAs are tax-free savings accounts combined with high deductible insurance policies that people obtain through their employers or buy independently from insurance companies. Numerous studies have shown that HSAs may increase the number of uninsured and increase health care costs, all while costing taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. It sounds like Bush is trying to do to health care what he did to Social Security – placing the burden on ordinary Americans while expecting them to take on the billion-dollar health industry. As such, it is another special interest policy that allows profits and health costs to continue to rise.

HSAs will do nothing to address the increasing number of uninsured Americans. HSAs will not help expand coverage among the uninsured because most uninsured Americans do not make enough money to benefit from tax breaks. HSAs would also encourage employers to either drop health insurance or reduce their contribution amounts. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the number of people who would lose their coverage because of HSAs would be higher than the number of uninsured who would get insurance.

HSA users will be more likely to skip necessary treatments to avoid the high costs. Individuals who have either consumer-driven or high deductible plans (both are elements of HSAs) were more likely to avoid getting necessary health care because of costs. Users with high deductible plans were also more likely than those with traditional coverage to have problems paying their medical bills.

HSAs have failed to work in other countries. South Africa and Singapore both implemented versions of health savings accounts, and Americans should learn the pitfalls from these systems. The Harvard School of Public Health found that the Singapore plan "caused financial hardship for Singapore's citizens and ... adversely affected the cost-effectiveness of its health care system." In South Africa, "the cost of specialty care has increased 43 percent, the cost of hospital care is up 65 percent,” and uninsured rates have "continued to grow rapidly."

HSAs will do little to control rising health care costs. Approximately 70 percent of costs in the U.S. health care system are spent on 10 percent of the population – the most expensive patients with the most catastrophic and complex needs. The costs these individuals incur well exceed health insurance deductibles, even for high deductible health plans, and high deductibles won't change their health spending patterns. By their very nature, HSAs are trying to control health care costs by changing care-seeking behavior for people whose health care spending represents a small proportion of overall health care costs.

Bush Wasted Hundreds of Millions of Taxpayer funds in Failed Iraq Reconstruction - Helped Cause Insurgency

Here are some answers to people who say "What about all the schools we are building in Iraq?":

Iraqi money gambled away in the Philippines. Thousands spent on a swimming pool that was never used. An elevator repaired so poorly that it crashed, killing people.

A U.S. government audit found American-led occupation authorities squandered tens of millions of dollars that were supposed to be used to rebuild Iraq through undocumented spending and outright fraud.

Some details:

It describes one agent who kept almost $700,000 in cash in an unlocked footlocker and mentions a U.S. soldier who gambled away as much as $60,000 in
reconstruction funds in the Philippines.

“Tens of millions of dollars in cash had gone in and out of the South-Central Region vault without any tracking of who deposited or withdrew the money, and why it was taken out,” says a report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which is in the midst of a series of audits for the Pentagon and State Department.

The audits offer a window into the chaotic U.S.-led occupation of Iraq of 2003-04, when inexperienced American officials — including workers from President Bush’s election campaign — organized a cash-intensive “hearts and minds” mission to rebuild Iraq’s devastated economy.

But the corruption and incompetence documented in the reports reveal that much of the effort, however well-intentioned, was wasted.

The failure of the rebuilding effort has been borne out most vividly by the rise of a virulent anti-American insurgency that has claimed most of the 2,237 U.S. military lives lost since the war began.

“Those deficiencies were so significant that we were precluded from accomplishing our stated objectives,” the auditors said of U.S. officials in Hillah being unable to account for $97 million of the $120 million in Iraqi oil revenues earmarked for rebuilding projects.

An October 2005 audit found documentation for the spending of just $8 million of that money.

Read it all here for all the details.

A (semi-)Honest Politician:

"We never comment on security matters, except when we want to."
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, declining to comment on reports that Russian authorities uncovered a large fake rock equipped with sophisticated electronics that allegedly enabled British intelligence to download and transmit information via handheld computers

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss - This time it's us edition...

This is from Al-Jazerra, but scoops like this that they have broken have been true in the past - and they are sourcing the Associated Press:

U.S. forces kidnap Iraqi fighters’ wives- Documents
U.S. troops detained wives to pressure men into turning themselves in

The U.S. Army released documents that reveal that the American troops have in at least two incidents kidnapped and jailed the wives of Iraqi suspects in order to of "leverage" their husbands to surrender, The Associated Press reported.

The documents describing the two incidents which took place in 2004 are among hundreds the Pentagon was forced to release under U.S. court order to meet an American Civil Liberties Union request for information on detention practices.

In one memo, a Pentagon intelligence officer describe an incident that occurred on May 9, 2004 during a U.S.-led raid on what is said to be a suspect house in Tarmiya, northwest of the Iraqi capital, according to AP.

"During the pre-operation brief it was recommended by TF personnel that if the wife were present, she be detained and held in order to leverage the primary target's surrender," the 14-year veteran officer said, adding that "the 28-year-old woman had three young children at the house, one being as young as six months and still nursing," wrote the intelligence officer, whose signature was blacked out on this for-the-record memorandum about his complaint.

The U.S. forces held the woman for two days and then released her after he complained, he further stated.

The second incident, described in sketchy detail in e-mail exchanges among six U.S. Army colonels, took place in June 2004. It involved a number of female detainees who were held in northern Iraq by the Stryker Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division.

An e-mail sent by a military police colonel to staff officers of the U.S. northern command, stated that the Iraqi police would not take control of the women, held without charges being brought against them.

Another one sent by a command staff officer to an officer of the unit holding the women, stated that "What are you guys doing to try to get the husband — have you tacked a note on the door and challenged him to come get his wife?"

Two days later, the brigade's deputy commander advised the higher command, "As each day goes by, I get more input that these gals have some info and/or will result in getting the husband."

"These ladies fought back extremely hard during the original detention. They have shown indications of deceit and misinformation," he went on.

A U.S. intelligence officer reported that in one case, a secretive task force locked up the young mother of a nursing baby, while in the second, involving another female detainee, one American colonel suggested to another that they catch her husband by tacking a note to the door telling him "to come get his wife."

Why Union?

This from a discussion of why unions may be failing in membership. Seems to me like a reason to be in a union.

In the United States, unions may have done their job only too well. Last year, according to the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, private-sector workers who were members of unions typically made 23.1 percent more per week than their nonunion colleagues, up from a 22.4 percent premium in 2004.

A reason to buy American - protect good-paying American jobs:

Consider the ailing auto industry. In the past two months, the top two American automakers announced plans to cut some 60,000 jobs, most of them union positions. That's roughly the number of nonunion jobs created in the American transplants of the German, Japanese and Korean car companies who are dining quite nicely at the expense of the American companies once known as the Big Three, and at a table that used to be their exclusive domain.

The decline of unionization matched the decline of American manufaturing. I disagree with this author as to which is the chicken and which is the egg:

The number of representation elections in American workplaces has declined sharply. And the share of these elections won by unions is down to about half, from more than 70 percent in the 1950's. And even as employment in nonunion businesses has grown, union jobs have disappeared. Companies either moved them
overseas or, overwhelmed by competition, eliminated the work entirely.

I like that way it ends:

Despite the long odds, unions still have potential pockets of growth. In the public sector, where there is little competition, unionization rates remain at more than 35 percent. Mr. Bryson said that even in the private sector, there were still industries in which competition was modest and corporations could raise prices without fear of losing markets to rivals. On economic grounds, these industries would seem prime candidates for union expansion.

What kind of businesses are we talking about? Hospitals would be one place to look. Energy companies would be another. Or why not an even bigger prize? Perhaps the labor movement should forget about cars and focus instead on a company that has crushed much of its competition: Wal-Mart.

Krugman on Abramoff: It is a Republican Scandal...

He makes the points beautifully here:

Let's review who Mr. Abramoff is and what he did.

Here's how a 2004 Washington Post article described Mr. Abramoff's background: "Abramoff's conservative-movement credentials date back more than two decades to his days as a national leader of the College Republicans." In the 1990's, reports the article, he found his "niche" as a lobbyist "with entree to the conservatives who were taking control of Congress. He enjoys a close bond with [Tom] DeLay."

Mr. Abramoff hit the jackpot after Republicans took control of the White House as well as Congress. He persuaded several Indian tribes with gambling interests that they needed to pay vast sums for his services and those of Michael Scanlon, a former DeLay aide. From the same Washington Post article: "Under Abramoff's guidance, the four tribes ... have also become major political donors. They have loosened their traditional ties to the Democratic Party, giving Republicans two-thirds of the $2.9 million they have donated to federal candidates since 2001, records show."

So Mr. Abramoff is a movement conservative whose lobbying career was based on his connections with other movement conservatives. His big coup was persuading gullible Indian tribes to hire him as an adviser; his advice was to give less money to Democrats and more to Republicans. There's nothing bipartisan about this tale, which is all about the use and abuse of Republican connections.

Yet over the past few weeks a number of journalists, ranging from The Washington Post's ombudsman to the "Today" show's Katie Couric, have declared that Mr. Abramoff gave money to both parties. In each case the journalists or their news organization, when challenged, grudgingly conceded that Mr. Abramoff himself hasn't given a penny to Democrats. But in each case they claimed that this is only a technical point, because Mr. Abramoff's clients — those Indian tribes — gave money to Democrats as well as Republicans, money the news organizations say he "directed" to Democrats.

But the tribes were already giving money to Democrats before Mr. Abramoff entered the picture; he persuaded them to reduce those Democratic donations, while giving much more money to Republicans. A study commissioned by The American Prospect shows that the tribes' donations to Democrats fell by 9 percent after they hired Mr. Abramoff, while their contributions to Republicans more than doubled. So in any normal sense of the word "directed," Mr. Abramoff directed funds away from Democrats, not toward them.

There have been both bipartisan and purely Democratic scandals in the past. Based on everything we know so far, however, the Abramoff affair is a purely Republican scandal.

Today in History - Happy Birthday FDR Edition

Today in 1882 our Greatest President was born (I wish we could get him back)...

Other happenings of note:

1933
Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany.

1968
The Tet offensive began as Communist forces launched surprise attacks against South Vietnamese provincial capitals.

1972
Thirteen Roman Catholic civil rights marchers were shot to death by British soldiers in Northern Ireland on what became known as ''Bloody Sunday.''

1979
The civilian government of Iran announced it had decided to allow Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to return from exile in France.

1991
The first major ground battle of the Gulf War was fought at the frontier port of Khafji in Saudi Arabia; 11 U.S. Marines were killed, seven of them by friendly fire.

Oh yea, and it is this guy's birthday as well. I think we should pass a law forcing him to pick a different day so as not to sully FDR.

Mark Green's Campaign Manager's Memory Problems:

Great line from the MJS:

Interviewed Monday, Graul was asked about the game and informed by a reporter of the skybox rule. He responded: "The impression I had was the seat was less than $50 (and) the face value of the ticket put us in compliance with the gift rule."

By Tuesday, he said he was no longer sure he went to the
game.

That pretty much sums it up - here is info on the game he attended:

Graul said last week that he probably attended a Feb. 22, 2000, Milwaukee Bucks-Washington Wizards game with Jennifer Calvert, then a co-worker of Jack Abramoff, who this month pleaded guilty to felony counts in a widening probe into public corruption that has spurred calls for reform.

This from the campaign manager of Mark Green - the man who said he spent the $30,000 DeLay money and therefore could not return it. Then followed that up with an excuse that it is illeagle for him to give it back. A little while later he said he would give it back, yet it is still in his account - he just says that he won't spend it.

What a joke.

More on what may or may not have happened:

Green acknowledged this month that Graul attended one basketball game with Calvert "nearly six years ago." He spoke at a Madison news conference on Jan. 11, saying that while Calvert had worked in the same firm as Abramoff, the media should not paint people "with the brush of corruption because of some 'six degrees of separation' connection."

Another former aide to the Green Bay congressman, Heather Weininger, said that she and Graul sat in a skybox at a Wizards game at the invitation of a lobbyist, although she said she could not remember when it was - or who was the host. She worked on Green's Washington staff from 1999 to 2003.

More details emerge in a series of e-mails - which Graul once dismissed as a "hoax" but now concedes are "legitimate" - involving Calvert, Abramoff and his former assistant. The e-mails detail Calvert arranging with these colleagues to get tickets for Graul to five events in 2000 at the MCI Center: two Wizards games, two pro wrestling events and a concert.

In one e-mail, she states that Graul asked her for seats to the 50th annual NBA All-Star game in 2001 and the slam-dunk contest held the day before the game. Under civil laws, federal employees may not solicit anything of value from people doing business with their employer. Graul denies ever asking and says he was in Wisconsin for all but one event mentioned in the e-mails: the Bucks-Wizard game.

Here's a good one:

When failing to come up with specific details, Graul gave various reasons for his memory lapses. He said he's "never kept much of a schedule" except for a "big desk calendar" and he'd long ago thrown out the 2000 version. He also said he regularly attended Bucks games in Milwaukee over 10 years, "further impairing my ability to remember specifics of one game."

Just tell the truth Marks Green and Graul - is it that difficult?

Thoughts on a Part-time Legislature

A part-time legislature reduces the number of candidates who could have the job.

Why, only people that can afford to take the time off to convene can be in the legislature.
Therefore regular working people who do not have the flexibility (in both income and days available off work) to drive down to the Capitol several days at a time for part-time pay will not be able to serve.

Being in the legislature part-time is relegated to the retired, the wealthy, the self-employed, and others this this sort of flexibility.

We just saw that in the Calumet County Board this year when Brad Fischer had to drop off the board because they refused to schedule meetings out of regular work hours, and he could not attend.

I therefore (reluctantly) support a full-time legislature. But, along with that, we need publicly financed campaigns - so that not only can a regular member of society have the ability to serve, but also to win.

Crime? or Coverup?

Another great post to Altercation:

Name: Beth Harrison
Hometown: Arlington, VA
Not meaning to promote someone else's equally well written and researched blog, (Talking Points Memo) but it turns out that the photography service for the Bush White House has scrubbed the photos of Bush and Abramoff. As in erased from their database (one reason not to use digital cameras -- no negatives). Now, if we apply the "what if Clinton did it" test, the hue and cry would go on for days, weeks, months, etc. Did Bush commit a crime with Abramoff? Don't know. Is Bush involved in a coverup of his relationship with Abramoff? You betcha. And as they said 32 (and 8) years ago, it's not the crime, it's the coverup.

A Look Into Bushworld

From MSNBC's First Read:

That wayward Agence France Presse camera that was distracting President Bush at the start of his news conference yesterday turned out to be a metaphor for events surrounding Bush and yet beyond his control as he prepares to deliver his State of the Union address on Tuesday: the surprise victory by Hamas in the Palestinian elections mucking up his Middle East policy; the Congressional Budget Office's verdict, essentially, that he can't make his tax cuts permanent and still halve the deficit by 2009; new Commerce Department data showing that the economy in the final quarter of 2005 grew at the slowest in three years; and widespread unease among Americans about the state of the country, as depicted by four national polls that happened to come out on the heels of his appearance
yesterday.

Missing a Point of a Story - Bemis Union Edition:

This is how the previous vote was characterized today:

In a 2000 vote, the union was rejected, 386-257, but the National Labor Relations Board and the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a re-election after determining the company violated the National Labor Relations Act by trying to influence employees with announcements of changes and pending changes to their retirement pension plans.

And this is how is was last week:

Workers rejected organizing, 386-257, in a July 2000 vote, but an administrative law judge set aside the vote after determining company managers violated the National Labor Relations Act by promising pension program increases if the union effort failed, according to a February 2005 decision of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

The difference? The second paragraph gives people a reason to vote for the union. Look at what happened. Just the threat of representation increased benefits for the workers.

I think this goes back to an organic bias of the media that I have mentioned before.

Eric Alterman:

Alterman also contended that, even if television pundits or politicians were not overtly liberally biased, the structure of media in general allows for much more coverage of conservative interests.

“Everyday I read the Business Section of the New York Times. Not the Labor Section, not the Environment Section,” Alterman said, referring to two nonexistent sections. “These are conservative assumptions.”

Enough Said...

Join here.

Good Cartoon:

Wash Post: "Bush, Come Clean About You & Abramoff"

We also know that Mr. Abramoff is an admitted crook who was willing to bribe members of Congress and their staffs to get what he (or his clients) wanted. In addition to attending a few White House Hanukkah parties and other events at which he had his picture snapped with the president, Mr. Abramoff had, according to the White House, "a few staff-level meetings" with White House aides.

Here is what we don't know about Jack Abramoff and the White House: whom he met with and what was discussed. Nor, if the White House sticks to its current position, will we learn that anytime soon. Press secretary Scott McClellan told the White House press corps: "If you've got some specific issue that you need to bring to my attention, fine. But what we're not going to do is engage in a fishing expedition that has nothing to do with the investigation."

This is not a tenable position. It's undisputed that Mr. Abramoff tried to use his influence, and his restaurant and his skyboxes and his chartered jets, to sway lawmakers and their staffs. Information uncovered by Mr. Bush's own Justice Department shows that Mr. Abramoff tried to do the same inside the executive branch.

Under these circumstances, asking about Mr. Abramoff's White House meetings is no mere exercise in reportorial curiosity but a legitimate inquiry about what an admitted felon might have been seeking at the highest levels of government. Whatever White House officials did or didn't do, there is every reason to believe that Mr. Abramoff was up to no good and therefore every reason the public ought to know with whom he was meeting.

Photo of the Week - Mark Green Doesn't Care About Women Edition

Above is the 'Photo of the Week' from Mark Green's Green Sheet Newsletter. Here's the caption:

Photo of the Week
This week's POTW is from Sunday, when Mark was the keynote speaker at the Sauk County Right to Life Rally in Baraboo. You can see a news clip about the event here. Mark's been called a "pro-life hero" for his efforts to protect all human life. As further evidence of his not sharing our Wisconsin values, Governor Doyle is on record favoring no restrictions on abortion at all.

Just an observation...

Mark Green is discussing women's reproductive issues with a bunch of men who seem to look well past 'child-bearing' age.

Shouldn't they be getting some opinions from the women whom their decisions would affect?

It really reminds me of this famous picture (you'll have to click for the link) titled "President Bush Signs Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003" featuring Bush surrounded by nine men and no women at the ceremony.

Great Letter:

Feingold looks better than GOP in Abramoff flap

The letter Steve Finley submitted against U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold was at best uninformed and at worst libelous. He begins by claiming Feingold accepted money from “a now known criminal.”

Why is Finley avoiding the use of Jack Abramoff’s name? Is it because Finley wants to avoid the fact that Abramoff has given money to Republicans? The non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics (www.capitaleye.org/ abramoff.asp) has listed everyone who has received money from Abramoff and Feingold’s name is not on that list. Furthermore, everyone on that list is a Republican, including George W Bush. Abramoff himself was designated a Bush “Pioneer” for raising at least $100,000 for Bush. The White House has said that Bush will keep the Abramoff money.

Feingold didn’t receive money from Abramoff; he received $1,600 from a PAC associated with Greenberg Traurig that employed Abramoff for a while. This money was neither illegal nor tainted. He gave it back anyway.

Finley then implies that because Feingold took money from a “now known criminal” he is no longer fit to sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Where does this leave Bush, and how does Finley feel about that?

As for Finley’s real question, “how many of those wiretapped were U.S. citizens?” According to the New York Times, almost all of the illegal spying has led to innocent Americans except for two. One was a lunatic who wanted to take down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch and the other wanted directions for detonating a fertilizer bomb.

What is more chilling is the recent report by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that Bush’s political opponents have been the target of many domestic spying incidents.

FISA oversight of NSA spying would have allowed the investigation of the two incidents above while stopping the spying on political opponents.

John Lemberger
Oshkosh

Bush Ruins Armed Forces

Stretched by frequent troop rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army has become a “thin green line” that could snap unless relief comes soon, according to a study for the Pentagon.

Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who wrote the report under a Pentagon contract, concluded that the Army cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency. He also suggested that the Pentagon’s decision, announced in December, to begin reducing the force in Iraq this year was driven in part by a realization that the Army was overextended.

Rep. John Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat and Vietnam veteran, created a political storm last fall when he called for an early exit from Iraq, arguing that the Army was “broken, worn out” and fueling the insurgency by its mere presence. Administration officials have hotly contested that view.

Ex-NATO commander agrees

George Joulwan, a retired four-star Army general and former NATO commander, agrees the Army is stretched thin.

“Whether they’re broken or not, I think I would say if we don’t change the way we’re doing business, they’re in danger of being fractured and broken, and I would agree with that,” Joulwan told CNN last month.

I am so tired of Bush wrapping himself in the Armed Forces while he sells them down the river in recuiting, equiping and funding upon return.

The Army is a great American institution and deserves better leaders than it is currently burdened with.

Reid Takes it to the Mat...

“In his 2000 campaign, George Bush promised to bring ’dignity’ to the White House but we’ve since found that he brought Jack Abramoff instead,” Reid, D-Nev., said at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, in remarks previewing Democratic criticism of the presidential speech.

Reid ticked off a list of what he termed Bush failures, contending Bush policies have made the country less safe, driven up debt and increased dependence on foreign oil.

He seized on problems with the newly implemented Medicare prescription drug plan. “The state of our union today is that we have seniors begging in the streets for the medicine they need,” Reid said.

Reid also said Bush was “deeply dishonest” when he promised in his 2003 State of the Union not to pass along problems to future generations. Instead younger generations will pay “so he can hand out tax breaks to special interests and the wealthy,” Reid charged.

I think Rep Gunderson has smoking and hunting mixed up...

That's why Slattery says there's no way eight-year-olds should be allowed to hunt, which would be the case if State Representative Scott Gunderson's bill passes. Gunderson says it's important to get kids involved in hunting early because if they don't start by age 12 or 13, it's too late.

Now, last I checked the hunting age has been 12 for a long, long time. Yet we still have plenty of hunters.

I think that an 8-year old does not have the judgement to look at the target, and make sure that everything around the target is safe to take the shot.

I encourage people to get their children involved with shooting sports. It is a great way for children to respect the power of firearms. But, in a more controlled environment. I shoot trap in the summer, and often get beat by kids under 12.

That is the proper place to indroduce kids to shooting. Not hunting in increasingly crowded spots.

Law Enforcement Approves of Doyles Concealed-Carry Veto

Governor Doyle deserves high praise for vetoing Senate Bill 403 the latest version of the concealed hand gun legislation,” according to LaCrosse County Sheriff Mike Weissenberger.

Weissenberger, president of the Wisconsin Sheriffs and Deputy Sheriffs Association (WSDSA) said that “Our association, representing well over 2,000 law enforcement officers through out Wisconsin, is gravely concerned about a provision in the bill relating to the way that police officers would be allowed to use information about permit holders.”

Also, praising the Governor for his veto was WSDSA Executive Director, James Cardinal.

Cardinal, a former Chippewa County Deputy, is especially troubled by the prospect that a person convicted of a violation, or for solicitation, conspiracy, or attempt to commit a violation, under the uniformed controlled substances act would be eligible to apply for and could potentially be issued a state permit to carry a concealed hand gun after 3 short years.

“The bill treats concealed handgun permit holders differently when it comes to the retention of the state’s public records. Under the proposal application records are to be destroyed after 15 months,” according to Cardinal.
“This is completely wrong.”

He also said “There should be no exemptions for applicants undergoing computer record checks either.”

Weissenberger encouraged the public to contact their legislators and tell them to vote to uphold the governor’s veto.

The LaCrosse County Sheriff closed by saying that once again “It is up to every citizen to help insure the protections that the current 133 year old prohibition on concealed weapons has provided.”

Thought of the Day:

Do we need Gov Doyle's plan to extend healthcare to cover the extra bullet wounds from concealed carry?

The Real Problem with the WI GOP Agenda

Doyle said this about concealed carry, but it could apply to any number of issues that the WI GOP has put forward to distract people from the true purpose of our government:

"The bill does not create a single job, help a single Wisconsin citizen afford health care, or improve schools for a single Wisconsin child," the governor said in a statement. "The Legislature should spend more time trying to get jobs into our communities instead of more guns."

Should Dean Kaufert be able to keep his liquor license?

I don't know if this is the law or not, but if it os then 'Silence Dogwood' makes a good point here:

Kaufert to lose liquor license?

Will Neenah State Representative Dean Kaufert lose his liquor license for his Main street tavern?

Kaufert owns Under the Dome (116 Main) in partnership with confessed corrupt politician and former GOP Majority Leader Steve Foti. Foti recently confessed to using State employers to run the political campaigns of his GOP buddies. The cost to the taxpayers for the salaries of the employees exceeds $300,000. Foti is awaiting sentencing which will likely include jail time.

Here is Kaufert’s problem. State law prohibits businesses that are owned in total or in part by convicted criminals from holding liquor licenses. Will the Neenah City Council yank the Dome’s liquor license? Or, will the Council members allow one of its favorite watering holes to thumb its nose at the law?

My Favorite Line From the State of the State

“I want to make this very clear to Wal-Mart and any other company that might be thinking of shifting its health care responsibility to taxpayers: BadgerCare is intended to help working families, not multibillion dollar corporations,” Doyle said.

Good Cartoon

From the Center for American Progress

A Success Story Close to Home (very close for me)

Neenah firm receives aid for $1.2 million expansion
J.J. Keller & Associates Inc. is planning a $1.2 million expansion at its operations in Neenah that will create about 70 jobs.

The company produces technical publications, software and online management tools to assist companies in various industries with compliance to federal and state regulations. The expansion project is to help develop and market a new management tool.

J.J. Keller has been awarded $250,000 in Technology Zone Tax Credits to support the project, which is expected to retain 983 jobs, Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle said.

J.J. Keller is a part of the Northeast Wisconsin Regional Economic Partnership Technology Zone, which provides incentives for high-tech growth in engineering/design, electronics, and wood/forestry related products, among others.

Guess Who Came to Work on Friday?

J.J. Keller to add 70 jobs

VINLAND — Gov. Jim Doyle Friday announced an economic development project expected to add more than 70 jobs at J.J. Keller & Associates, a large technical and regulatory publishing firm west of Neenah. The project ties in with Doyle’s “Affordability Agenda” outlined during his State of the State address this week. A main element of the agenda is strengthening Wisconsin manufacturing. The jobs are related to a Web-based product from Keller that assists human resources departments.

Another one:

“This is exactly the reason why we are pursuing the election of all municipal court judges,” said Jeff Hall, executive director of the state Board for Judicial Administration. “If he had been elected, he could have contested the removal of his clerk and still remained in office.”