Superb Commentary On Midwestern High-Speed Rail

Recently-retired Journal Sentinel editorial writer Jerry Resler returned to Sunday's Crossroads section with a brilliant economic and political aargument in favor of Midwestern High-Speed Rail.

It's must-read and another important reason, among others, to vote for Barack Obama, a national passenger rail backer.

Note that some funding for high-speed rail is possible soon, though there could be all sorts of hangups on actual appropriations.

That is more likely if the Democrats control Congress and The White House.

It would also be an improvement if Wisconsin officials touting high-speed rail nationally and regionally would also get on board with support for the more local and logical rail connections within and connecting cities, too.

Important SEWRPC Meeting Tuesday In Waukesha: Public Welcome

A regularly scheduled meeting of SEWRPC's Environmental Justice Task Force takes place Tuesday afternoon at 4:00 PM in the Rotary Building at Frame Park in Waukesha - - agenda and map here.

The EJTF was created last year by SEWRPC - - the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission - - after it got spanked following a contentious public hearing in 2004 in front of federal reviewers over agency failures to achieve genuine outreach to low-income and minority communities.

[Note: Surprised by the scope of the public's dissatisfaction with SEWRPC expressed at the 2004 hearing, federal officials in charge of the 2008 review - - from which SEWRPC can be reauthorized to help spend US transportation funds in the region - - have regrettably set up the quadrennial 2008 session on October 22nd with a quieter format that dampens the public's voice.]

Regardless, interested parties should come to Tuesday's EJTF meeting, for these reasons:

SEWRPC may have something of substance to disclose about its oft-discussed-but-long-delayed housing study.

The agency says it is working on possible study committee appointees, and a work plan draft, but will not release the draft for public review.

There have been indications that the work plan will likely replicate tired SEWRPC models and approaches, if only because outsiders have not been allowed to help craft it.

For the EJFT, and for SEWRPC, this is a missed opportunity, as SEWRPC still doesn't understand that the earlier there is input on the design of a study, the more likely it is that the study will gain and receive credibility and value from start to finish.

But let's remain positive and hold out hope that SEWRPC will get religion on 21st century housing needs and alternatives, along with housing's connections to transportation planning, job development, land-use and the region's long-term economic sustainability.

Yeah, you're right: that's a lot of hope, since SEWRPC's last housing study was published literally in another century - - 1975 - - and it's hard to keep score of the social and financial changes since, or that could be addressed if SEWRPC finally, finally...finally got serious about comprehensive and coordinated planning in the region.

The EJTF agenda also indicates there will be discussion about SEWRPC's existing land use plan and its water supply advisory committee which has recommended diverting Lake Michigan water to Waukesha.

Unfortunately, the water study did not take into account housing or transportation issues, so you see the depth and breadth of the problem.

But...and this is the positive part ...the EJTF encourages public comment at the end of each of its meetings, so if you have an opinion on any of these matters, or think that the EJTF should turn its attention to other SEWRPC-related issues, this is the place with a format where you can come and speak.

4:00-to-6:00 PM, Rotary Building, Frame Park, 1150 Baxter St., Waukesha.

Nostalgic Republicans Need New Slogans

Will certain local and national righty talk show hosts, and other practitioners of a certain galling ahistoricality, retire their outdated overuse of a certain hackneyed Ronald Reagan line about Guvmint being the problem and not the solution?

The exact quote from his first inaugural address was, "Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem."

And it's been repeated ad infinitum/ad nauseum as a throwaway line, an ignorant, anti-government bumpersticker by Republicans ever since, particularly those tilting towards selfish, Libertarian Do-Nothingism.

So I ask you government-haters: whom do you think is trying to save your IRA's, home equity and jobs - - through loans, lending guarantees, inter-governmental coordination worldwide and now direct stock ownership in failing firms?

Saving your/our you-know-what?

From AIG to General Motors to major banks, it is the federal government stepping in, back-stopping, bailing-out, propping-up and otherwise saving the day.

The result will be money for home buyers, businesses, pensions and the other components of a modern economy.

Admittedly imperfect, but in trouble, and in need of repair.

The government is all of us, acting on our collective behalf. It is not some outside force that served Reagan as rhetorical pinata, but now, for good reasons, will mean something far different and more valuable.

Many Republican legislators voted for the rescue plan and will do it again if they have to because most of them understand that without strong and intentional federal government action in the market place, on Wall Street and on Main Street, there will more long-term damage.

So let go of the rhetoric and get used to realistic American governing that involves more public financing on and through a new social and fiscal balance sheet.

McCain Threatens To Suspend Our Disbelief

John McCain pledges a respectful new tone, then says he's going to whip Barack Obama's "you know what."
This is sooooooo Presidential.

Looks Nice Outside, But It's Unhealthy Monday

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources says Monday's air will have unhealth levels of particulate matter in much of the state.

There is the notice and the counties:

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is issuing an Air Quality Watch for Particle Pollution for Brown, Calumet, Columbia, Dane, Dodge, Door, Fond du Lac, Green, Green Lake, Iowa, Jefferson, Kenosha, Kewaunee, Lafayette, Manitowoc, Marinette, Marquette, Menominee, Milwaukee, Oconto, Outagamie, Ozaukee, Racine, Rock, Sauk, Shawano, Sheboygan, Walworth, Washington, Waukesha, Waupaca, Waushara and Winnebago counties effective 12:01 am on Monday, October 13, 2008 through 11:59 pm on Monday, October 13, 2008 .

The watch is being issued because of the forecast for elevated levels of fine particles in the air. Fine particle pollution is composed of microscopic dust, soot, liquid droplets and smoke particles that are 2.5 microns or smaller. These fine particles come primarily from combustion sources, such as power plants, factories and other industrial sources, vehicle exhaust, and outdoor fires.

The Air Quality Index is forecast to reach the orange level, which is considered unhealthy for peop le in sensitive groups. People in those sensitive groups include those with heart or lung disease, asthma, older adults and children. When an air quality watch is issued, people in those groups are advised to reschedule or cut back on strenuous activities during the watch period.

People with lung diseases such as asthma and bronchitis and heart disease should pay attention to cardiac symptoms like chest pain and shortness of breath or respiratory symptoms like coughing, wheezing and discomfort when taking a breath, and consult with their physician if they have concerns or are experiencing symptoms. Fine particle pollution deposits itself deep into the lungs and cannot easily be exhaled. People who are at risk are particularly vulnerable after several days of high particle pollution exposure.

To receive air quality advisories by e-mail, visit http://dnr.wi.gov/air/newsletters/.

There are several actions the public can take to reduce their contributions to this reg ional air quality problem.

Reduce driving when possible and don't leave vehicle engines idling.
Postpone activities that use small gasoline and diesel engines.
Minimize outdoor wood fires.
Conserve electricity.
For more ideas on how you can reduce your emissions today and every day visit: Do a little, save a lot!
For more information:

Air Quality Watches and Advisories Status Web Site
Daily Air Quality Hotline - 1-866-324-5924 (1-866-DAILY AIR)
Federal interagency air quality web site, for information on the Air Quality Index and nationwide air quality forecasts and air quality conditions, http://airnow.gov
DNR's statewide air quality monitoring web page, http://dnrmaps.wisconsin.gov/wisards
For local DNR air management program conta cts, http://dnr.wi.gov/air/about/regions.htm

While McCain Says "My Friends," Others Run The Other Way

An unseamly, self-serving, cover-your-behinds-dance has begun among Republicans as they write off John McCain.

These party insiders are merely positioning themselves for influence down the road in their fractured and disorganized party by being able to say Nov. 5th, "I told you so."

Including our own former Gov. Tommy Thompson, who appears in a Sunday New York Times dump-on-McCain piece.

Kinda makes you wonder who McCain has in mind when he says "my friends." If the naysayers and backstabbers keep this up there's going to be a sympathy vote out there for McCain.

Offshore Wind Farms Have Promise, PSC Says

The state Public Service Commission says that wind turbines placed offshore in the Great Lakes would be better energy generators than those installed inland.

Sounds promising, though we're far from seeing these installations offshore, for a variety of legal, financial and political reasons.

The PSC study was prompted, in part, by a private firm's approach to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, first reported on this blog, proposing the placement of more than 600 turbines in Lake Michigan - - each structure rising more than 300 feet in the air.

Details here.

Send Palin To A Sporting Event In Philly? You Know What Happened Next

Boooooooooooooooooooooo.

Who are the idiots running McCain's campaign?

Mike Schmidt got booed in Philly.

CNN posted this description:

October 11, 2008
Palin booed at NHL game in Philadelphia
Posted: 09:28 PM ET

From CNN Political Producer Peter Hamby

"PHILADELPHIA (CNN) – Although many Philadelphia Flyers fans cheered and clapped as Sarah Palin took to the ice at the Wachovia Center on Saturday night to drop the ceremonial puck kicking off this town's NHL season, their warm reception was no match for the 90 seconds of sustained booing that rumbled through the arena, drowning out most of the cheers in support of the Republican vice presidential nominee.

"As Palin stepped onto the ice before a capacity crowd to drop the puck, joined by her daughters Willow and Piper, the arena's jumbotron flashed a futile message to the thousands of notoriously harsh Philadelphia sports fans in attendance.

"'Flyers fans, show Philadelphia's class and welcome America's #1 hockey mom, Sarah Palin," the massive electronic message board pleaded, to little effect. Booing quickly erupted when the smiling candidate emerged from a tunnel leading onto the ice, muffling the applause of any Palin supporters in the crowd."

Paulson And GOP House Ideologues Helped Screw McCain AND The Economy

You'll find an interesting discussion here from The NY Times website about Treasury Secretary Paulson's failure to find a buyer for Lehman Bros. or otherwise rescue it.

That sent a signal to the markets that to make a textbook philosphical point, the Bush administration would let that huge Wall Street banking institution fail and trip off collateral financial and employment damage that is still continuing.

Add in the House Republicans' ideological walkout on Bailout/Rescue I, a moment of historic weakness.

It further told stock traders and international financiers that powerful US politicians weren't up to the task - - the market closed down 777 points on the Monday following the GOP retreat - - so it's fair to lay much of the continuing meltdown at the GOP's doorstep.

Bush and the far right sandbagged candidate John McCain eight years ago in the primaries and now those ideologues are screwing him again, along with the rest of the country.

If that's what conservatism is all about, particularly when it gets its hands on the levers of power, pleasee bring on the liberal alternative.

High-Speed Rail Connecting Chicago-Milwaukee-Madison Passes One Hurdle, But...

Federal funding may be soon available to upgrade the roadbed between Chicago, Milwaukee and Madison as an element of Midwestern High Speed Rail.

But the last time these upgrades between Milwaukee and Madison were discussed, objections in, where else - - Waukesha County - - began to surface.

A few daily trains apparently posed noise and safety obstacles that to some glass-half-empty people were insurmountable.

The roadbeds and track are there in the corridor, as is the need.

All that, plus crossing-gate technology and valuable funding could finally come together, but look out for the anti-train crowd in Waukesha County.

Theirs is a one-note tone - - "NO!"

And don't overlook the agenda that is hidden in plain sight beneath concerns about noise, even safety: An Amtrak train that stopped in Waukesha might someday be connected to a commuter train, or, gasp ... a light rail line.

Oh, the humanity.

Why "TrooperGate" Will Hurt McCain More Than Palin

John McCain needs this harpoon in the flank of his campaign like he needs another bailout plan or more bad polling numbers:

A state investigator looking into the propriety of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's efforts to get her ex-brother-in-law fired from his state trooper job - - a bi-partisan legislative inquiry that began months before McCain plucked Palin from obscurity to be his running mate - - concluded late Friday that Palin's crusade against the trooper broke the state's ethics code because she used the power of her office against him.

The trooper was involved in a messy divorce from Palin's sister.

Both Palin and her husband Todd were found to have inappropriately misused her office; that pressure was also cited as a contributing factor in Palin's firing of the Alaska public safety commissioner, though his firing was legal because he served at Palin's pleasure, the report said.

Palin could be censured by the Alaska state legislature for the ethics code violation; a separate probe by state personnel regulators could result in more bad press, and a fine.

It's somewhat like the conflict-of-interest investigation that tarred now-Wisconsin State Supreme Court Justice Annette Ziegler: there were accusations, denials, probes, more denials, then findings and fines.

Imagine all that in the context of a heated presidential campaign with barely three weeks to go.

So the report will be big news. and will saddle the McCain-Palin campaign with a heavy weight, for these reasons:

1. Palin claimed to be have run for Alaska's Governor, and to have been picked to be McCain's running mate, in large measure because she was a reformer. Using one's political office and family to punish a relative or ex-relative is about as old school and underhanded as it gets.

As was ducking subpeonas, suing to halt the probe, and complaining that the timing and origins of the probe were partisan and election-timed, which demonstrably they were not.

2. Palin was not been forthcoming about her motivations and actions in the matter; the report said the reasons she cited for bringing pressure against the trooper were not credible. Now we're into that old political thicket, where the coverup is usually worse in the public's eye than the original offense.

3. The pending investigation was known to McCain before he picked Palin as his running mate. So they either gambled that the lid could be kept on through the election, or the McCain people took Palin's version of events as gospel.

Either way, it reflects poorly on McCain and underscores Palin's incomplete and hurried vetting once Joe Lieberman and Tom Ridge were ruled out. Larger lesson: Let Rush Limbaugh influence your veep pick and you might have live with some nasty consequences.

4. Any negative media in the last few weeks of a campaign - - even more so a Presidential tilt - - take on a life of its own because everything in a campaign is magnified as time runs out; something this fundamental about Palin's governance, record, maturity and truthfulness, and that has been percolating for weeks, is guaranteed to dominate several political news cycles when there aren't that many left to burn.

The economy will be story number one for days and weeks, and perhaps months or years, but the Palin report will lead and drive the 2008 presidential campaign story well into next week.

And it will resurface seamlessly in McCain's final make-or-break debate, where McCain, Reformer I, will have to explain again why he picked her, what he knew and when did he know it. the more he tries to minimize it - - as Palin had been doing - -the more he'll look like a fake.

5. Palin and McCain have been raising rhetorical doubts all week about "the real Obama." Now the shoe is on the other foot. The real Palin? That report is more than 250 pages, and who knows where the Day Two, Day Three, and Sunday network morning shows will take it.

6. The report illustrates an old lesson in politics and physics. Palin had her glitzy and rapid - - too rapid - - ascent, and now what went up is falling back to earth. No secret where it lands: Right on top of McCain's campaign, already dead in the water.

Conservatives Attack McCain's Bailout II Plan (sic)

Conservatives continue to undermine John McCain's weird mortgage buyout plan that he hurriedly rolled out at the last debate, then modified, and now is stuck with.

McCain's campaign lurches around the country and across the spectrum: One day it's suspended, the next day it isn't. One day he's for civility, the next day he's stirring up the mob. One day the fundamentals of the economy are strong. The next day, the economy is so weak he's pushing state socialism. One day he's for personal responsibility. The next day he wants Big Government to buy your mortgage, no matter how bad.

Democrats don't have to claim that McCain's campaign is erratic. All they have to do is let people watch.

State GOP Plays The Race Card

We are hearing that the state GOP has finally thrown all pretense aside and put the race card before a Madison judge.

Once the party of Lincoln, the GOP is fully embracing its inner Jim Crow by asking that special voter ID procedures be required during November balloting only in Milwaukee.

The GOP knows that there has been a hugely-successful voter registration effort in Milwaukee, where the largest number of minorities and Democrats happen to live in our acknowledged swing state.

The GOP is making the 'argument' that because there has been a handful of bad, or allegedly illegal voter registrations attempted (and ferreted out) in Milwaukee there should be mass, court-ordered voter suppression and election-day chaos here.

I can't believe that a judge will approve such an overt, state-sponsored discriminatory scheme.

But shame on the Republican Party of Wisconsin for trying to use the courts to suppress what it knows will be large numbers of minority voters likely to be voting Democratic.

You'd have thought these attitudes would have been put to rest by the US Civil Rights Act, and The Voting Rights Act, or almost 150 years of post-Civil War history, but apparently not.

It's a sign of desparation. Losers behave this way, without confidence.

The sure-to-fail voter ID plan might be aimed solely at further invigorating - - outraging, actually - - the increasingly twitchy GOP base, but I'm predicting that like disingenuous schemes, this one will backfire and help motivate Democrats to get out the vote with even more determination.

Class Warfare Blame Game: Conservative Points To GOP

Republican talkers are quick to accuse Democrats of a class warfare strategy, but conservative columnist David Brooks says the GOP has being using a class warfare strategy for years, and this year the scheme is a loser.

County Board Grounds Walker Budget Gimmick

The County Board is deep-sixing plans by Executive Scott Walker to consider leasing Mitchell Airport.

The Board is obviously tired of Walker's annual budget fakery and now they and some department heads will get down to the tough choices in real budget crafting.

Seems this is the silly season for Republican pols - - everyday a new scheme to throw money at something. McCain has a new bailout plan a day - - yesterday to buy bad home mortgages for full price; today, have the government make some people's IRA plans more whole.

What will these goofs think of next?

Angry Big Spender Crashes Anti-Spending Rally

Remember his budget deficit?

Many In Waukesha Bare Their Teeth; Not Pretty

A friend from out of state saw the televised images of angry McCain supporters yesterday and wondered if this was the same area that has been demanding Lake Michigan water.

Yes, I told him. Same place.

The mood at the the rally was summed up by a questioner who expressed shock that McCain was running behind.

What? Our guy is behind?

Might we not get what we want this time around?

Fight, fight, fight, the crowd told McCain.

Yes, I told my friend. Waukesha exceptionalism and entitlement were on full display yesterday.

There is a warmer side to Waukesha. I had a pleasant dinner there the other night at the Rochester Deli downtown, where urbanity and charm is everywhere.

But in these hard-getting-harder times, who needs all this rage?

At other recent McCain rallies there have been calls of "off with his [Obama's] head" and worse, and if McCain has tried to calm his supporters, I didn't see it.

Waukesha folk have to stop and think if they are presenting a welcoming, Heartland face to the world, or are they becoming the New Angrytown?

New Villard Avenue Library Plan A Winner

The Journal Sentinel editorial board finds a lot to like in the plan for a new, mixed-use Villard Avenue Library.

Combining services and uses in a public setting is how cities keep improving and reinventing themselves, adding value and innovation even in a down economy.

I hope the alderman retain the plan in the Mayor's 2009 budget. It's a plus for the neighborhood, a model for Milwaukee and a testament to the value of community organizing.

And I especially enjoyed seeing props handed out to project driver Sam McGovern-Rowen.

KK River Cleanup Set For Saturday AM

Looks like a nice event. Details From Milwaukee Rriverkeeper here.

Confronting, Solving The World Bankruptcy

The Washington Post's David Ignatius treats the financial crisis as it were a global bankrupty, and offers a solution.

Beginning with acknowledging the severity of the problem. Pretty interesting.