Details On 20 Illegal Wolf Kills Recorded By DNR In 2012

In response to an Open Records request, the Wisconsin DNR provided information on 20 illegal wolf kills it recorded in 2012 - - the year in which the first legal hunt was authorized by the legislature and implemented by the DNR.

The 20 illegal kills were among 123 wolf deaths in Wisconsin outside of the official 2012 hunt "harvest" of 117, the State Journal reported, bringing the total last year to 240.

Incomplete or imprecise information in the DNR information about the 20 illegal deaths provided was due to animal decomposition or available investigative data.

I have culled these details from the record.

Sex - - 10 males, 10 females.

Counties - - Bayfield, 3. Chippewa, Price, Taylor and Douglas - -  2 each. Sawyer, Burnett, Wood, Eau Claire, Walworth, Oconto, Adams, Jackson, Dane - - 1 each.

Cause of death - - Illegally shot, 15. One each as: Illegally shot; Illegally killed; Illegally shot as coyote; Illegally killed shot /arrow?; illegally killed-trapped, shot.

Carcass Disposition - - Whole, 17. One each as: Carcass without head; Head only; carcass disposed of; Collar only found.

Final disposition/Fine - - N/A or blank in 18 cases. In Delavan, for Larry A. Ellis, No contest/$152.55; In Arlington, for Nathan Campbell, Initial Court Appearance on 1/08/13/ $410.40.

Under Walker's Medicaid 'Policy,' Distance From Obama Is Priority #1

With a re-election campaign already underway and dreams of national office besting pal Paul Ryan dancing in his head, our ideologically-driven and Tea Party luvin' Gov. Walker has found fresh makeup to highlight a more moderate political image:

Health care for low-income people.

There's a compassionate conservative for ya.

Walker wants - - and will get kudos - - from talk radio and rest of the far-right by saying "No" to full state participation in federally-funded Medicaid expansion, much as he said "No" to the Amtrak expansion with guaranteed federal funding - - 'Federal Funding Bad' - - while adding just enough people to BadgerCare so as not to be a total heartless ghoul.

The Journal Sentinel is saying:

Gov. Scott Walker will not pursue a full expansion of the state's BadgerCare coverage as foreseen under the federal health care law and will seek instead a middle path that retains some of his long-standing opposition to the federal law even as some Republican governors have relented in recent days. Walker is expected to make the announcement at an event Wednesday.

Which Walker explained in his trademarked and curious word-salad style:

...in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Friday, Walker signaled that he would be unlikely to take the full expansion but was interested in a middle path on dealing with Medicaid. 

"I think there's more than just a black or white," he said. "I think there's variations."

It appears I was on the right track last week when suggesting here that when Gov. Walker dealt with a looming deadline about Medicaid expansion it would be first as a way to separate from Obama-Who-Can-Never-Be-Give-Any-Credit, and then secondarily, after the strategic and political considerations, as a substantive policy issue:

An editorial in the La Crosse Tribune explains all the policy and people reasons why Gov. Walker should take additional federal funding available under Obamacare to expand Medicaid in Wisconsin.

Problem is, this is Scott Walker we're talking about - - a 100% partisan and strategy obsessive who will see the decision as he did with the federally-funded Amtrak expansion: a self-interested method of dissing public services and distancing himself from President Obama. 

In other words, as a political opportunity to cozy up to the right fringe that listens to talk radio, votes in primaries and likes its party tea as strong as possible.  

Would that I be proven wrong. I'd love to admit it.

Lobbyists Still Using Old-Timey Checks To Show Legislators Personal Loyalty

Dan Bice has the scoop about $500 "loyalty checks" from lobbyists that were sought and scored by Fundraising Savant and GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos - - payments separate from traditional campaign contributions forked over by lobbyists' clients:

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and his GOP leadership team found a new system this past election cycle:

Shake down the lobbyists for personal donations...

The result: Vos collected $36,000 in personally signed checks from scores of lobbyists in the final months before the November election...

But where others see a new wrinkle in this iteration of pay for play access - - or monetizing loyalty oaths, perhaps - -  I see legislators stuck in the papered world of the 70's and 80's.

Signed paper checks? In an era of direct deposit and electronic transfers?

Why don't lobbyists simply give their credit card account information to legislators who could just collect, withdraw or redirect the funds?

Or for those still wedded to checks, GOP leaders could install a dedicated ATM in a leadership anteroom just off the floor where lobbyists could deposit their checks, and legislative leaders could then tap in a PIN for immediate withdrawals.

I'll bet the keypad could be configured with a legislative appointment calendar so meetings could be set up, as they say, post haste and quid pro quo.

There has to be an app for that.

About Mining, Ojibwe Leaders To Speak Twice Tuesday In Milwaukee

Milwaukee-area residents will have two opportunities Tuesday to hear directly from Ojibwe people impacted by a proposed open pit iron mine close to their reservation.

Bad River Band chairman Mike Wiggins, Jr. will address the Milwaukee Rotary Club at noon at the Milwaukee County War Memorial Center, 750 N. Lincoln Memorial Drive. 

Wiggins, more tribal leaders, along with artists and other speakers will also make presentations from 5-7 p.m. at the Urban Ecology Center, 1500 E. Park Place. The event is free and open to the public.

The Center, with exhibits, classes and other sessions always worth the visit is in the Riverside Park neighborhood at the Milwaukee River south and west of the intersection of Oakland and Locust Avenues.

Ample street parking is available; based on attendance at a similar event on Milwaukee's south side a few weeks ago, I'm predicting a strong turnout.

Glenn Grothman - - Caulk This!

Glenn Grothman says just dab on a little of this.

When Penokee Hills blasting and open-pit digging cracks your well and swallows up its water...

Glenn Grothman On "Gals," And Other Things

Including all about communism, welfare, college ("overrated") and, though single, about marriage, the family and child-rearing. Nine minutes from the second-ranking State GOP Senator and self-described "negative" guy at a Tea Party rally, here.

Grothman also weighed in separately on how the mining company will assure water quality near the proposed open pit operation.

Spoiler alert. Caulk is involved.

Glenn Grothman On Water Quality And Mine Cracks: 'Caulk It'

West Bend GOP State Senator And Fix-It Guy Glenn Grothman told a Mellen farm family their 150-ft. well would be safe from mine operations to create a 1,000-ft. deep open pit canyon blasted a mile from their home because mine operators would prevent leaks by caulking any cracks.

Since the mine being pushed by Grothman and other GOP legislative mine captives is projected at 4.5 miles long in phase one, with another 18 miles possible, I am definitely buying stock in this company:


Audio/video with the farm family, here.

Hat tip, Rebecca Kemble!

Mining Bill Arrogates Water Rights, Abrogates Treaty Rights

* "Government and industry control of water levels has in nearly every instance proven disastrous to wild rice crops." Wild Rice and the Objiway People, p. 290. Thomas Vennum, Jr., Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1988. - -

* "The Ironwood Iron Formation in the Gogebic Range is steeply tilted (ca. 60° to NNW) and has limited natural exposure at the surface. A stably benched 200-300 m deep open pit mine in the Ironwood would therefore have a very large surface area and would require the removal of an immense volume (on the order of 330 million m3) of waste rock... 

"...[that] contains significant amounts of reduced iron as sulfide (pyrite, pyrrhotite and related minerals), which could react with oxygen to generate acid mine drainage." Lawrence University report, summary, 2012.

* "The proposed mining bill does away with any limits on polluting ground water deeper than 1000 feet, even if water supply aquifers would be at risk if such pollution occurred underneath the mine.

"Monitoring of that deep groundwater also would not be required...

"Under the bill, individual citizens couldn’t enforce permit limitations...

"...“citizen suit” provisions have been included in many state and federal environmental laws to protect citizens from the potential failure of state regulators to take enforcement action... The proposed mining bill eliminates “citizen suits” to enforce iron mining permits." 
Attorney Dennis Grzezinski, 2013. - -

* "The Bad River people, this is our homeland, this is all we have." Bad River Band Chairman Mike Wiggins, Jr, 2013. - - 

So now, with the Ashland listening session closed out late Saturday though the mining bill had already sailed through two committees last week through GOP state-managed proceedings, how do we sum up their intention to force an industry-written iron mining bill on the state and the mining site neighbors? 

Put it this way: Those who already hold a disproportionate share of power are implementing a grasping talking point you could put on a bumper sticker - - an ethos without ethics that has driven corporate elites and their pocketed lawmakers before there were talking points or car bumpers:

What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine, too.

Private companies, GOP legislators, trade associations, mining executives and their lobbyists have united in the halls of the State Capitol under the banner of a more current talking point - - business certainty - -  to breathe life into discredited, forgettable 19th century robber baron behavior and press for a massive open pit iron ore mine near Ashland without deigning to hold a public hearing on the bill or the agenda behind it any closer to the effected area than Madison, hundreds of miles away.

These power brokers are intentionally ignoring treaties generations old that define a strip of land on the south shore of Lake Superior close to the Penokee Hills as reserved by the Bad River Band in exchange for virtually all of what is now Northern Wisconsin.

The reservation/reserved property - - with its own certainties - - is land which private companies, legislators, trade associations, mining executives and their lobbyists cannot access, manage, dominate, fill, pave, 'develop,' hunt, fish, deforest, dam, or dewater.

But this corporate juggernaut wants to skirt, undermine, and flat-out wreck existing law, practice and tradition by reworking and weakening - - through compliant GOP legislative marionettes - - the state's environmental laws.

They want to blast, mill and even dump, with acidic runoff-bearing content, an entire range of hills at or into waters that connect with the Bad River and Lake Superior watersheds.

With waters that course through wild rice beds central to the survival of people whose rights to land and water and way of life predate statehood, and whose culture has protected status in treaties with the US government - - signed sovereign nation-to-sovereign nation.

The juggernaut wants to 'win' by devaluing what is not theirs.

Every constituent, every Wisconsin citizen should let the Governor and the legislators serving him know that the mining bill is bad legislation.

That it undermines the State Constitution's Public Trust Doctrine.

That it desecrates The Wisconsin Idea.

That we, the people do not want our representatives in 2013 to turn us into retrograde treaty breakers and polluters whose greed and arrogance led to mistreatment of native people and the environment wrested from them.

That we say, to the contrary and with certainty:

What's theirs is not ours.

And water rights the Public Trust Doctrine has said since 1787 belong to all of us are not for sale.

Media Note Heavy Opposition In Proposed Mining Area

If legislators seriously listened to public testimony, and local leaders, the mining bill would be going nowhere:

Mike Wiggins Jr., Bad River tribal chairman, said the mine would threaten the wild rice beds at the mouth of the Bad River on Lake Superior because of sulfide that could be produced by mine waste piles, and also because of silt from earth and ground-up stone.

Larry McDonald, the mayor of Bayfield, also warned of potential damage to Lake Superior.

“Do no harm to Lake Superior,” McDonald said. “Don’t screw it up. We get only one shot at this.”

Climate Change Deniers Buried In NE Snowfall

Or by record Hurricane Sandy/tornado/drought/fire/flood damage.

Apologizes are in order.

Good Article On Mining Issues in Wisconsin Gazette

Another keeper:

More than 20 perennial streams flow through the proposed mining area, according to a study published by Tom Fitz, associate professor of geoscience at Northland College in Ashland. Many of those streams have been designated as exceptional or outstanding resource waters by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

Fitz and others are concerned about the potential impact the mine might have on the flow as well as the chemistry of the groundwater and surface water that spreads from the mining area. That area is full of pyrites and other sulfur-bearing minerals, which could send acid mine drainage down the Bad River, the Tyler Forks River, and other rivers that spill into Lake Superior.

[7:15 p.m. update] A commenter who cannot tell the difference between the Wisconsin Gazette and The Janesville Gazette in Paul Ryan's home town forces me to put up this link to the Janesville operation so readers can see that there are two news organizations sharing the word Gazette. To both publications - - you're welcome.]

Ron Seely, Tweet Of The Day (And More To Come)

Ron Seely ‏@rseely

Bad River tribal historian: "If chiefs who signed treaties had known destruction of mining, they never would have touched the pen." #wismine

IndianCountryTV Streaming Mining Hearing

Here is the website.

Ashland Mining Listening Session Live Coverages

Through this portal, both live blogged and streamed TV:

People Are Fleeing Walker's Wisconsin - - But Half-Price To Kill Wolves'll Bring 'Em Back

Pandering discount alert! Wisconsin under Walker finds itself on the wrong kind of states' top ten list (people are leaving), but not to worry, Bucky - -  knocking 50% off the $100 license to kill a wolf is bound to reverse the trend.

Speaking at the Wisconsin NRA convention in Wausau on Friday, Gov. Scott Walker announced his intention to reduce the price of the wolf hunting license to $50.

Water Pictures Worth The Proverbial 1000 Words About Mining Bill

Purple Wisconsin blogger Barbara Miner uses a couple of photos to explain the mining bill's permission to fill some lakes. The Wisconsin Supreme Court had decades ago said what a bad idea that is.

Legislative Listening Session On Mining Proposals Set For Ashland Saturday

GOP legislators refused to bring an official hearing on environmentally-destructive iron mining bills to Northern Wisconsin - - even though that is where fast-tracked legislation could lead to an huge open pit iron ore mine where the Penokee Hills now stand close to Lake Superior - - so a number of legislators are holding the next best thing: an all-day, bi-partisan listening session in Ashland this Saturday.

Good for them, shame on cowardly mining captives running the legislature - - and here are the details:

Jauch and Bewley Announce Northern Listening Session on Mining Bills

February 9th Listening Session will include discussion of both SB1 and Senator Cullen Proposal

MADISON-Senator Bob Jauch (D-Poplar) and Representative Janet Bewley (D-Ashland) announced today that they will be holding a public listening session at the AmericInn in Ashland on Saturday, February 9th beginning at 9:00 a.m. The event is open to the public and the discussion will focus on the two recently introduced mining bills, SB1/AB1, authored by Senator Tom Tiffany (R-Hazelhurst) and LRB 0821, authored by Senator Tim Cullen (D-Janesville).

Groups Want Transit Added To Zoo Interchange Project...

And are suing to have the $1.7 billion highway-only project halted until transit and related concerns are are added:

On February 6, 2013, Milwaukee community groups asked a federal court to stop plans to expand the Zoo Interchange in western Milwaukee County unless and until the Wisconsin Department of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration look at incorporating public transportation into the project and properly consider air quality, social and economic effects of their plans.

The groups and their attorneys are pointing to transportation, social and economic inequities that have distorted the $6.4 billion freeway expansion from its beginnings.

The Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission wrote the plan for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.

Governors Thompson, McCallum, Doyle and Walker continued the planning and implementation, with repeated Legislative financing.

Will Walker Expand Medicaid? I Doubt It

An editorial in the La Crosse Tribune explains all the policy and people reasons why Gov. Walker should take additional federal funding available under Obamacare to expand Medicaid in Wisconsin.

This much also is clear. We will pay for the costs one way or another. Many of the possible participants are people working part-time jobs that offer no health insurance coverage. If we want to expand our workforce and grow jobs in Wisconsin, we need to make sure more people have access to medical coverage.

As Dr. Laurie Logan, a family practitioner at Mayo Clinic Health System-La Crosse said during a press conference Monday, postponing health care simply puts more people into the emergency room, which is the most expensive coverage.

We also know that if Walker does not accept the expansion, the state will continue to pay for 40 percent of the coverage (the feds pay the rest) for people already covered under various programs. And new figures released Tuesday by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau show Wisconsin could cover up to 175,000 additional people and save $66 million during the first three years.

The state’s cost for from 2016 through 2020 would be an additional $67 million, but Wisconsin would get $4.56 billion from the federal government. That’s a pretty good return on investment and one would hope — under Walker’s leadership — that the state’s economy will grow and the number of people needing Medicaid-funded programs would diminish.

Problem is, this is Scott Walker we're talking about - - a 100% partisan and strategy obsessive who will see the decision as he did with the federally-funded Amtrak expansion: a self-interested method of dissing public services and distancing himself from President Obama.

In other words, as a political opportunity to cozy up to the right fringe that listens to talk radio, votes in primaries and likes its party tea as strong as possible.

Would that I be proven wrong. I'd love to admit it.
 

WI Righty Website Commentary: Gabby Gifford Is "Playing Us"

What a publicity hound, that Gabby Gifford. I forget - - just why is she in the news and exploiting us?

You'll have to subscribe to Charlie Sykes' new, Journal Broadcast Group's conservative media platform RightWisconsin to find out what's behind Gifford's scheme.

Sykes teased the commentary's availability earlier this morning.

The author is former Sykes colleague and WTMJ-AM talker James T. Harris, now broadcasting from a Tuscon radio station.

Absent Governor Walker - - Acting Governor Kleefisch?

Just asking, given that Scott Walker is out of town a lot, and not, by the way, to pick up pointers at wonky workshops about creating jobs.

A few weeks ago, Walker was out in LA doing vision speechifying at the Reagan Library.

The other day he spoke at a GOP fundraiser in Nebraska.

And we learn today that is Walker's penciled in to headline a major GOP Congressional DonationFest in DC - - highlighting an out-of-state itinerary that got intensely busy prior to the 2012 recall election when Walker took to the friendly skies and wine-and-cheese circuit and capitalized his record war chest/John Doe Defense Fund.

The Lt. Gov. in Wisconsin is in charge under certain circumstances when the Gov. is unavailable, and maybe cell phones and tablets mitigate the need for direct, decisive action by #2, but you never know when circumstances and our wandering Walker will put the Lt. Gov. in the driver's seat.

Walker's National Profile Gets New Boost

Yahoo.com News is reporting another feather in Scott Walker's cap:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker will deliver the keynote address at the National Republican Congressional Committee's March dinner in Washington, D.C., an annual event that serves as the House Republicans' most lucrative fundraiser.

Walker will join the dinner's chairman, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, to raise money for the 2014 midterm election cycle. The NRCC plans to publicly announce Walker's speech on Thursday with a raffle contest in which the winner will be flown to the capital for the event.

Mining Bill Allows Lake Filling - - Despite WI Supreme Court Warning

To no one's surprise, two legislative committees in Madison passed the industry-crafted, GOP-managed iron mining bill Wednesday.

The Journal Sentinel explains that the bill will allow iron mine operators to fill some bodies water with waste rock:

Republicans also adjusted the bill to limit the ability of mining companies to fill waterways, though Democrats said tougher protections were needed. A 2-acre pond could still be filled with rock, they said.

Hey, what's two acres? What's a little fill here and there?

Readers, and legislators might want to take a look at what the Wisconsin Supreme Court has said about such practices, especially since the waste rock produced by the proposed iron mine in Northern Wisconsin will create waste rock by the hundreds of millions of cubic yards.

And the rock contains sulfide minerals that can produce toxic sulphuric acid runoff.

At the headwaters of the Bad River Band...which empties into Lake Superior...and upstream from where the Bad River Band gets its drinking water and has grown wild rice for centuries.

The Court understands that all our waters are finite and connected.

And when the Department of Natural Resources explains Wisconsin water law and the State Constitution's "Public Trust Doctrine" water rights section on the DNR website it calls attention to what the Court had said in a case about why its a bad idea to fill even a relatively small body of water.

Says the DNR - - and note the third graph in this excerpt:

Wisconsin's Public Trust Doctrine requires the state to intervene to protect public rights in the commercial or recreational use of navigable waters. The DNR, as the state agent charged with this responsibility, can do so through permitting requirements for water projects, through court action to stop nuisances in navigable waters, and through statutes authorizing local zoning ordinances that limit development along navigable waterways.

The court has ruled that DNR staff, when they review projects that could impact Wisconsin lakes and rivers, must consider the cumulative impacts of individual projects in their decisions.

"A little fill here and there may seem to be nothing to become excited about. But one fill, though comparatively inconsequential, may lead to another, and another, and before long a great body may be eaten away until it may no longer exist. Our navigable waters are a precious natural heritage, once gone, they disappear forever," wrote the Wisconsin State Supreme Court justices in their opinion resolving Hixon v. PSC.(2)

Sources: (1) Quick, John. 1994. The Public Trust Doctrine in Wisconsin. Wisconsin Environmental Law Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1.
(2) "Champions of the Public Trust, A History of Water Use in Wisconsin" study guide. 1995. Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Bureau of Water Regulation and Zoning. Champions of the Public Trust [PDF].

Dane County Judge St. John Campaign Responds To Criticism Posted Here

Two days ago I posted on this blog an open letter from Madison Attorney Lester Pines critical of judicial candidate and Dane County Circuit Judge Rebecca St. John. I had seen it on Facebook and reposted it on the blog.

The St. John campaign asked if I would post a response. I agreed. The campaign forwarded this response which I am posting below:

Why I Hired Judge Rebecca St. John and Why I Am Supporting Her Election; By Peg Lautenschlager, former Wisconsin Attorney General

In 2004, I hired Judge Rebecca St. John from a pool of hundreds of applicants to be an assistant attorney general at the Wisconsin Department of justice. 

I was impressed then, as I am now, by the qualities that make her an outstanding judge: a first-rate legal mind; a fierce independence; an outstanding work ethic; and a passion for using her considerable skills to make communities safer and make the criminal justice system work better for all of us.

It is not surprising that given something to argue about, lawyers will. So it is not surprising that some attorneys, who have been supporting Judge St. John’s opponent from the beginning, are arguing about what Judge St. John wrote in her judicial application. 

It is one thing to have differences of opinion. It is another to distort a candidate’s words and misinform voters about her. I recognize the difference. Many of the attempts to discredit Judge St. John fall into that latter category.

Judge St. John’s application is a 57 page document. It is posted in its entirety on her campaign website at www.judgerebeccastjohn.org. 

Asked to “explain in one page or less why you want to be a judge/justice” Judge St. John wrote (page 9 of the Judicial Application Supplement):

 “I want to be a circuit court judge because I have a tremendous respect for the role that the judiciary -and circuit court judges in particular - have in the administration of justice and sustaining our structure of government. The quality of the judiciary depends on the quality of its circuit court judges. The circuit court is the first - and, for many or most litigants, the only - step in the judicial process, and many circuit court decisions are accorded deference when appealed."

It is clear Judge St. John understands and respects the role of an independent judiciary in our democratic form of government. 

It is clear Judge St. John believes it is a Judge’s duty is to overturn laws that are unconstitutional. And knowing her as I do, I have no doubt Judge St. John will courageously exercise that responsibility if and when an unconstitutional law is brought before her. 

I am also concerned about the criticisms of Judge St. John’s analysis of two cases dealing with criminal procedure, one of which I was involved with as Attorney General (Armstrong). 

Those of us who have prosecuted these awful crimes – the individuals were convicted of murder and sexual assault – understand these cases aren’t ideological. It is about providing finality to victims, absent either a constitutional or other established basis for reversal. 

It is not easy to dismiss the fact that Judge St. John has earned the endorsement of 34 judges, many of whom have decided important cases. 

They include Judges David Flanagan, Frank Remington, and Paul Lundsten. In addition, Sheriff Mahoney, Mayor Paul Soglin, a long list of some of Dane County’s finest attorneys, victim advocates, and educators also support Judge St. John.

I know Judge Rebecca St. John. I know her work as an attorney and I know her work as a judge. 

I have read the words she wrote and I have heard her speak about her work as a Judge. 

She has my full, unequivocal, and strong support.

How The Mining Bill Sacrifices Wisconsin Waters

Attorney Dennis Grzezinski explains in detail how the mining bill disregards and harms Wisconsin waters:

Municipalities and homeowners with wells could lose their drinking water supplies if a mining company draws down the groundwater sources in their approved mining operation. 

According to the proposed mining bill, the DNR must permit an iron mining company to locate as many high-capacity wells wherever it wants to supply as much water as it needs for its mining and processing and related activities. 

With only one exception, DNR would have no authority or power to prevent the mining company from drying up lakes, rivers, streams, ponds, springs, wetlands or wells, so long as the company was willing to take steps to improve groundwater anywhere else in the state. 

The only exception is that DNR would be required to include conditions to protect “privately owned high-capacity” wells (i.e., private businesses) from mining company drawdown of water (or the mining company must pay them out), but would not have any power to protect municipal water sources or private residential wells.  

(This screams for a headline, or more letters to the editor.) 

So you would be out of luck if your individual well runs dry or your municipal water runs out.  The DNR would be required to allow this drawdown, if the mining company wants it, once the law takes effect and a mine is permitted.

The proposed mining bill does away with any limits on polluting ground water deeper than 1000 feet, even if water supply aquifers would be at risk if such pollution occurred underneath the mine.

 Monitoring of that deep groundwater also would not be required.  Not only does this eliminate state regulatory safeguards for drinking water, but the absence of information regarding the pollution source could make it much harder years or decades later for those whose water supplies have been contaminated to prove that the mine was the cause of the pollution.

Under the bill, individual citizens couldn’t enforce permit limitations.  Many existing environmental permitting laws, including Wisconsin’s current mining laws, authorize citizens who are harmed by violations of environmental permits to sue the polluter, essentially on behalf of the state or federal government, to enforce the permit limitations. 

These sorts of “citizen suit” provisions have been included in many state and federal environmental laws to protect citizens from the potential failure of state regulators to take enforcement action, which could happen if state agencies are understaffed or lack resources needed to enforce the permits they have issued, if the threat of jobs being lost or companies moving is made, or if political pressure is brought to prevent enforcement against a particular permit holder or industry, or even as a result of bribery or corruption of someone  responsible for enforcement.  

The proposed mining bill eliminates “citizen suits” to enforce iron mining permits.

If mining were safe, GTac and Republican leadership wouldn’t need to make these changes to the existing Mining Law, and the mining company wouldn’t need all the exemptions from existing environmental regulations and exemptions from liability from municipalities and private property holders.

Jeff Wagner Raises Crime Fears

Second WTMJ-AM banana Jeff Wagner went on a anecdote-fueled but data-free rant today about what he says is Milwaukee crime spreading west into Wauwatosa.

He said "bad guys...creeps...perverts" were coming from Milwaukee as crime will "spread and spread and spread" into the suburbs.

Enabled by lenient judges, etc. etc.

Brought to you without shame by Journal Communications.

Talk Radio Grandiosity Alert: You've Been Warned, Newspaper Newsroom

Sykes is taking up air time today on WTMJ-AM radio justifying the pay wall now in operation at his new, righty online service.

He tells listeners who don't like the $4.99/mo. fee for certain content that his bosses (that would be Journal Broadcast Group) have given him only two full-time staffers - - this is while multiple buyouts and budgets cuts from other Journal Communications bosses have decimated what Sykes calls "the dead tree" - - while he wants a dozen staffers to "expand" the operation and "go head-to-head with the Journal Sentinel."

Retail Politics Discounted At WI Legislature Today

GOP legislators from both houses today in Madison will trade down from retail politics to wholesale sellout when they run an industry-crafted mining bill through two committees.

And GOP leaders have removed any doubt about whose interests in this sham process are being served by scheduling the votes in two different committee rooms at the same time, so even if you promise on a stack of official Scott Walker For Governor biographies to be solid citizens and swear to sit still, hat/sign/camera-free like good boys and girls, you could only see and hear the discussion and watch the vote at one of the meetings.

Politicians in a democracy practice full-on retail politics during campaigns, meeting with and speaking before as many voters as possible.

Today, at the mining committee votes - - not so much - - since the deal has already been done.

Waukesha's Ill-Timed Push For Lake Michigan Diversion

When it comes to Lake Michigan water, is the out-of-the Great-Lakes-basin City of Waukesha out of luck and good timing, too?

Waukesha has said, and will no doubt continue to reiterate, that it intends to return all of its sought-after Lake Michigan diversion as treated wastewater (minus an as-yet-to-be established amount for so-called "consumptive use") - - but the news that Lake Michigan has fallen to a modern-era low level underscores a timing problem with this first-ever application by an out-of-basin application under the rules of the Great Lakes Compact of 2008.

You can anticipate this question being asked across the Great Lakes region when the DNR finishes its work on the application, presumably says it's complete and sends it on the other Great Lakes that all get a whack at it and would have to approve the application unanimously.

'Is this the right time to set a precedent and begin allowing new withdrawals?

Asked another way: 'If we say "yes" to Waukesha, will we have a harder time justifying "no" to other requests for pipes into the Great Lakes?'

It also brings to mind a few lines I remembered having been published in 2010 by the Waukesha Freeman after a lengthy interview on the water issue with Mayor Jeff Scrima.

I'd reprinted links to the interview, and this section still sticks with me:

Scrima said he asked Don Gallo, an attorney working with the Waukesha Water Utility, why the city is pushing to receive Lake Michigan water now instead of waiting 30 to 40 years.

“What he said to me blew me away,” Scrima said. “He said, ‘The Great Lakes are not sustainable.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘Well, we are only able to return 92 percent of the water because there is 8 percent of consumptive use.’”

Scrima said Gallo told him that the Great Lakes governors are going to realize that people will use water to drink, water their lawns and for industry, and as a result will cease approving water diversions under the terms of the Great Lake Compact...

However, Gallo said the Great Lakes are sustainable and the water supply is the most reasonable option available to the city. The mayor may have been confused by their discussion, he added.

David Clarke Is Right About This Officer's Response Time

His own.

If you're in California on a regular basis.

Root River Emerging As Waukesha Wastewater Discharge Option

Once Oak Creek emerged last year as the City of Waukesha's potential source of diverted Lake Michigan water, it then became apparent Waukesha would need a discharge point for returning that water as close as reasonably practical to its point of origin and keep its diversion application in compliance with the Great Lakes Compact.

Sources were telling me that the discharge solution more and more points to the Root River as that probable discharge route, rather than Underwood Creek - - the Menomonee River watershed discharge route designated in Waukesha's diversion application that was drafted some time ago when the City of Milwaukee was the presumed Lake Michigan water supplier.

Though with the City of Oak Creek to Milwaukee's south now Waukesha's preferred, new water supplier - - replacing Milwaukee - - there is more behind-the-scenes talk that the City of Racine, despite State Rep. Cory Mason's strong statements to the contrary, will end up as the eventual Waukesha wastewater discharge route outflow point into Lake Michigan, via the Root River once Waukesha and the DNR green-light Waukesha's application for a diversion of Lake Michigan water. 

We'll see. Look for a final decision by Waukesha and the DNR within 60 days, give or take.

Word was also floating around that the Waukesha Water Utility had secured an option on land in the City of Franklin for a possible Root River discharge point.

Tip of the cap to Don Behm at the Journal Sentinel for getting that scenario on the record:

The City of Waukesha has an option to purchase 60 acres in Franklin on the east bank of the Root River should Waukesha succeed in its request to buy Lake Michigan water. 

The property southeast of the intersection of Oakwood Road and S. 60th St. is one possible location for Waukesha to end a pipeline carrying treated wastewater so it could be discharged to the river and returned to the lake, Waukesha Water Utility General Manager Dan Duchniak said. 

Waukesha paid $60,000 for a four-year option to buy the parcel...about 10% of the purchase price. 

GOP Offers Minor Changes To Mining Bill

I see only minor changes in the mining bill amendments (language and Leg Council analysis, here) - -  offered Monday by Republican sponsors.

The bill still aims to put a massive open pit mine many miles long (euphemistically called an easily-filled "ditch," though it would go 1,000 feet deep and a few thousand feet wide, too ) in the wrong place - - at a river headwaters, below pristine hills and closely upriver from a rice-growing culture's lands.

The Journal Sentinel notes that the bill still loosens environmental standards and still contains one of the industry's non-negotiable demands that helped kill a similar bill last year - -  moving the crucial public "contested case" hearing on a mining application that now would take place before the DNR makes a ruling to a point in the process after the DNR were to rule on the permit.

The amendments made no changes in the bill's treatment of contested case hearings, which could be used by opponents after the DNR makes a decision on a permit. State law now says such a review occurs before a final decision, and opponents say by pushing back the hearings their hand is weakened in challenging a mining application. 

Contested case hearings are quasi-judicial proceedings that allow citizens to challenge actions by the DNR.

And the proposed amendments try to work around acid runoff from sulfide-bearing waste rock likely to find its way into the Bad River watershed - - compromising the US Clean Water Act and historic water and landscape protections in the Wisconsin State Constitution's Public Trust Doctrine.

These seem like continuing serious problems to me, as does a bill-writing process that let the mining company call the shots while intentionally ignoring the treaty rights and physical proximity of the Bad River Ojibwe that live and grow the wild rice basic to its culture downstream from the mine site.

And have do so far before statehood.

I'd said the entire effort to site a mine beneath where the Penokee Hills rise more than a thousand feet near Lake Superior in Northwestern Wisconsin was a large-scale square-peg-in-a-round hole process.

Wiping a little lubricant on the edges of the peg isn't a solution.

Lester Pines: Why I Will Not Support Rebecca St. John For Circuit Court Judge

Below is the text of a public letter released Monday by Madison Atty. Lester Pines:

Recently I reviewed the June 26, 2012 application, submitted by Rebecca St. John, that convinced Governor Scott Walker to appoint her as a Dane County circuit court judge. 

In the application she says that many times circuit court judges ignore the rules and interpret statutes for the sake of “political expediency.” But another statement is the most troubling:

“According to the supreme court, all laws are to be sustained against a constitutional challenge unless they are unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt. Too often, circuit court judges pay merely lip service to this standard.” (St. John Application, p. 12)

In other words, she thinks that circuit judges blithely declare laws to be unconstitutional.

Judge St. John should name the circuit court judges and produce the cases decided by them that support her assertion.

I suspect that she will be unable to do so. I have litigated numerous constitutional challenges in circuit court and have never experienced a judge “merely paying lip service” to his or her legal obligations.

What is more likely is that Judge St. John made the statement to Governor Walker, who uses such misleading rhetoric to demonize the judiciary, as a “dog whistle” alert to let him know that she will support him and his legislative acolytes when their laws are challenged.

The most recent cases from Dane County in which the constitutionality of a statute was challenged that were finally decided prior to Judge St. John’s successful application for appointment are:

• League of Women Voters Educational Fund, Inc. v Walker where Judge Richard Niess determined that the Voter ID law was unconstitutional;

• McConkey v Van Hollen where the constitutionality of the manner in which the Marriage Amendment was submitted to the voters. Judge Niess held that the Legislature had acted constitutionally;

• Appling v Doyle in which a group of citizens challenged the constitutionality of the Domestic Partners Law. Judge Daniel Moeser found the law to be constitutional;

• Dairyland Greyhound Park v Doyle which was a challenge to the constitutionality of certain Native American gaming compacts. Judge Richard Callaway found the compacts to be constitutional.

Three of those four circuit court decisions upheld the constitutionality of the challenged law.

Only the Voter ID law was declared unconstitutional. Does Judge St. John assert that Judge Niess “paid merely lip service” to his duties in the Voter ID case but followed the law in Marriage Amendment case?

Judicial elections are important. We elect judges to apply and interpret the law. Most importantly, judges function as a “check and balance” against the excesses of the legislative and executive branches. When judges do so, they are not “creating law” or “acting for political expediency” or “paying lip service” to their obligations.

To protect our rights, the judges of this state carefully consider challenges to the constitutionality of laws and strike them down when they must. No one, just to get appointed to the bench should, as Rebecca St. John did, suggest otherwise.

We're Just Minutes Away From GOP 'Changes' To Mining Bill

Wherein the words "minor" and "cosmetic" will be redefined by Wisconsin GOP legislators carrying the mining industry's sulfide-poisoned water as "major" and "substantive" - - all in the name of "certainty." There may even be a sighting of "sustainability," but that would require major and substantive changes to an historically-bad, precedent-setting legislative FUBAR.

Pawns In The Mine Game

Before we see a summary of the situation from one Bobby Zimmerman from the neighboring state of Minnesota, let's understand that the Wisconsin mining bill is more than your typical piece of legislation.

The bill's impact extends far past the immediate, unfathomable outrage - - blasting away the Penokee Hills near Lake Superior for an open pit iron ore mine 700-to-1,000 feet deep, about a mile wide and four-to-22 miles long through Iron and Ashland Counties.

For starters, Al Gedicks has given us a broad, international perspective basically ignored by traditional media.  I posted it yesterday and it helps illuminate the bill's bigger picture connections, its implications in Wisconsin and motives behind its origins and rush to approval.

The bill was written with the input of an out-of-state coal company - - a privilege denied to statewide conservation groups, independent scientists or to the Bad River Ojibwe who live in the effected watershed - - but enabled by Gov. Walker's and his GOP legislative allies because they are carrying out a corporate agenda to put private interests in control of public Wisconsin resources.
 
These GOP politicians did this disregarding that falling iron ore prices, resistance by the Bad River Ojibwe, opposition by citizen organizations or conflicts with the US Clean Water Act and US Army Corps of Engineers' process and standards could tie-up the mining plan indefinitely.

Even then, even if there is never a shovel full of iron ore extracted, Walker and his legislative buddies could say, 'I tried...they wouldn't let me...and, oh, make that check out to Friends of...'

And if signed into law, the bill would establish the precedent intended - - the exemption for private mining companies from current water, tribal, treaty and environmental law.

So mining interests get special polluting privileges.

And the next day, or next year when your basic business park developer, big-box builder, residential sub-divider - - heck, think bigger - - the insecticide factory John Norquist used to invoke, or a Great Lakes oil driller come asking for similar treatment and equal exemptions - - the mining precedent will be right there.

Remember that among Walker's first actions as Governor was getting a special bill from legislators to skirt a then-ongoing Department of Natural Resources review and allow a corporate donor/developer to fill a wetlands near Lambeau Field.

He also got for his administration the power to sell publicly-owned, taxpayer-paid power plants.

And at about the same time, Walker meddled in the implementation of long-negotiated and finally-completed regulations to keep toxic phosphorus out of Wisconsin waterways.

Remember also that Walker got from the Legislature the power of first review of administrative rules being proposed by state agencies - - even those that he does not administer:

...Walker's idea won praise from Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state's largest business lobbying group. 

"These reforms will help businesses create and retain jobs in our state by providing badly needed checks and balances on agencies when they write rules that have the force of law," said a statement from James Buchen, a WMC vice president.

And Walker made sure he would never again need to end-run DNR reviews with special bills by assigning builder and DNR-basher Cathy Stepp (with her "chamber-of-commerce mentality" of-commerce-mentality") to run the agency.

Walker embedded that mentality into the DNR's day-to-day operations more effectively by adding corporate attorney and former building association executive Matt Moroney as DNR Deputy Secretary to manage, among other assignments, a top-to-bottom agency review of DNR rules and regulations.

Walker has not hidden this agenda, as he told the State Journal:.

“Without a doubt, we’ll be doing a cost-benefit analysis of every rule,” Walker said.

DNR Secretary Stepp showed the Walker approach when the agency came under fire last year for its kid-gloves' handling of human waste dumping violations near farm and residential wells in rural southeastern Wisconsin - - and she further defended to the State Journal her agency's reduction in enforcement actions when environmental rules were broken:  

DNR officials say the decrease is partly caused by an enforcement staff that's been hit hard by budget cuts. But they also point to a philosophical shift that emphasizes cooperating with businesses by helping them navigate complex state and federal regulations and steering them into compliance when they violate their permits.

"I don't apologize for that," said DNR Secretary Cathy Stepp of her emphasis on customer service and a less-confrontational agency. 

Stepp, Walker, and their GOP mining legislation captives are corporate water-carriers called out by this well-known Minnesota iron range native.

Mining Bill Would Bail Out Troubled State Jobs [Sic] Agency

Little known fact: The GOP/industry-crafted mining bill shortchanges local communities in impacted areas and awards a big chunk of the meagre iron ore revenues to be collected by the state to Scott Walker's Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, (WEDC), - - the Walker-chaired brainchild and sop to business that mismanaged state funding, had its initial CEO fade away, and lose track of millions in loans in just its first year of existence.

Clean Wisconsin lists that revenue grab in a list of important things you need to know about the bill:

Directs 40% of all mining tax revenues to the beleaguered Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, rather than to local governments for their investments in local infrastructure as local law requires. WEDC has recently been under fire for losing track of more than $8 million in loans it gave to state businesses. (p. 40)

An alternative bill proposed by State Sen. Tim Cullen, (D-Janesville), would bring some sanity to the distribution of the revenue - - which, by the way, should be greatly increased:

Seventy percent of tax revenue would go to local governments. The remaining 30 percent would go to WEDC for loans and grants to businesses within 100 miles of the mine.

Under current law, 100% of such revenues go to the locals.

Al Gedicks' WI Mining Bill Must-Read Report

Long-time UW-La Crosse educator and writer Al Gedicks has produced a masterful analysis of the political and environmental implications of the mining bill Scott Walker and GOP legislators are rushing to completion.

If you read one thing today about this issue, read his article, here:

Prior to investing in new resource colonies, multinational mining corporations frequently change a country’s mining laws to remove restrictions on foreign ownership, reduce taxes, ease environmental protections and guarantee access to water supplies needed for mining.

During the 1990s, under pressure from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, over 90 states in the Global South changed their mining laws to attract foreign mining investment. These neocolonial measures, often called “neoliberal reforms,” are now being used to open up new mining projects in the Lake Superior region of Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota.

Progress On Streetcars in Cincinnati And Milwaukee

Seems that Cincinnati has resolved some utility and costs issues:

City & Duke Energy Reach Streetcar Agreement

Duke Energy To Begin Moving Its Utilities

Today, Mayor Mark Mallory and City Manager Milton Dohoney, Jr. announced that the City of Cincinnati and Duke Energy have reached an agreement on the Streetcar project. Under the agreement, Duke Energy will begin moving its utilities now, while a court determines responsibility for the relocation costs later.

The City and Duke have also agreed to an operations plan for how Duke and the City will work in partnership once the Streetcar is operational.

And Milwaukee is making some progress, though right now it looks like Cincinnati will get there first:

The city plans to release the proposed route of the Milwaukee streetcar project by late spring or early summer, and hopes to begin construction of the streetcar guideway in spring 2014.

The schedule was included in a filing with the state's Public Service Commission. The PSC has not yet ruled on whether the city or utilities must pay for moving utility lines out of the way of the streetcar route, a cost utilities have estimated at more than $55 million.

Alleged Alabama Kidnapper, Murderer And All-Around Screwball...

Is said to own five guns, the AP is reporting.

One of which Jimmy Lee Dykes allegedly used to murder a school bus driver before stealing a child and holding him in a home-made underground bunker.

Perhaps the same gun authorities said he had used to threaten, even shoot at his neighbors:

Dykes was known around the neighborhood as a menacing figure who neighbors said once beat a dog to death with a lead pipe, threatened to shoot children for setting foot on his property and patrolled his yard at night with a flashlight and a firearm....

Authorities said Dykes boarded a stopped school bus filled with children on Tuesday afternoon and demanded two boys between 6 and 8 years old. When the driver tried to block his way, the gunman shot him several times and took the 5-year-old boy....

Dykes had been scheduled to appear in court Wednesday to answer charges he shot at his neighbors in a dispute last month over a speed bump. Neighbor Claudia Davis said he yelled and fired shots at her and her family over damage Dykes claimed their pickup truck did to a makeshift speed bump in the dirt road. No one was hurt.

Note also that he did not commit these crimes with a hammer, car, swimming pool or bow-and-arrow.

Memorable Mining Quotes Sum It All Up

Wisconsin Public Television posted a transcript of remarks collected for a documentary aired on June 17, 2011 before the first mining bill went down to defeat.

It's a fairly short transcript and a few of the remarks are keepers:

Then-Bucyrus CEO Tim Sullivan - - later Scott Walker's point man/adviser on mining legislation - - and now working for an iron mining company but not the one looking to blow an open pit iron ore mine at least four miles long, a half-mile or more wide and 700-feet or so wide (with another 18 miles of ore available) where the Penokee Hills now stand:

Tim Sullivan: 

We’re talking about digging a ditch, taking the iron ore, filling the ditch in. That’s as simple as what it is.

Later:

Tim Sullivan: 

In the business world, we say you have to have some top line growth. You need to get some revenue into the pot. And that’s what this will do in spades.

Then, immediately:

Mike Wiggins, Jr., chairman of the Bad River Band, whose lands and waters are downstream from the so-called ditch.

Michael Wiggins:

The Bad River people, this is our homeland, this is all we have. 

And:

What do we stand for? Preservation of what we have left. 

And:

You have to take a deep breath here for the sake of Wisconsin, for the sake of our tribes. 

Six Years And Counting Here

I wish I could say that I deliberately started writing this blog on Groundhog Day, 2/2/2007 - - but I wasn't that clever. Though I did hit a water theme: call me prescient, or something.

And yes, 2/2/2007 was the day the UN declared that human behavior was driving climate change - - a major topic on this blog - - but I don't remember and did not the post story that day (in large measure because I couldn't get the hang of embedding links using the Blogger template):

On Feb. 2, 2007, the United Nations scientific panel studying climate change declared that the evidence of a warming trend is "unequivocal," and that human activity has "very likely" been the driving force in that change over the last 50 years. 

Truth is that I'd been thinking about starting a political and environmental blog (thank you for the kick in the pants, Xoff) and tinkered with Blogger and on 2/2/2007 hit "publish."

The blogging will continue here for at least another six weeks, regardless of the weather. Thanks for reading.

Ojibwe Chairman Wiggins Lambasts Legislature

Mincing no words by letter, Bad River Band Chairman Mike Wiggins, Jr. took Wisconsin legislators to task for ignoring tribal sovereignty throughout the production of a mining bill that would substantially degrade the Band's land, water and treaty rights.

The Wisconsin State Journal explains:

"As a Native Sovereign Nation, the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Tribe of the Chippewa enjoys the right to engage in government-to-government consultation on matters of law and policy that affect its interests," Wiggins wrote.

The state failed to initiate any such consultations, he wrote, adding that Bad River tribal members and other Native Americans "have been singled out for abusive treatment during the legislative process."

One legislator said a year ago that shutting the tribe out of mining discussions was OK by him.

Others share the ignorance that Wiggins' letter to legislators attempts to cure.

Having written extensively on the obstacles facing an open pit iron ore mine in the Lake Superior watershed where the Bad River Band live and harvest wild rice basic to both subsistence and cultural continuation, I am shocked at the persistent misinformation posted in comments by anonymous readers who do not understand that the Ojibwe have rights stated in treaties signed by the United States government.

And I say "stated," not conferred by the US Government, because these rights are extant and were  retained decades and decades ago by the Ojibwe - - rights that preceded the formation of the United States - - and which were laid out in treaties when the Ojibwe ceded to the US Government - - nation-to-nation - - massive acreage worth unimaginable wealth from which modern-day Wisconsin was created.

But this is misunderstood, or ignored, from the State Capitol to the North woods to southeastern Wisconsin.

Here is one such comment under a posting of mine that ran in Friday's Journal Sentinel as an op-ed:

DONTTHREEPUTT -

I would support legislation to give the Indians the wild rice they need on an annual basis. Now can we please get this going and create much needed jobs and income to this area? I'm sure it would win on a local referendum. It's easy for us to sit down here in Southern Wisconsin and blog about a project that will not affect 95% of us.

Note to the commenter: That's not how it works. Abrogate the treaties, and, what...all of Northern Wisconsin reverts to the native people?

Other comments on my personal blog when I write there about the mine issue get deleted, something I rarely do, because the racism would drip right through your computer screen.

More, here, among many website histories and explanations that make clear there is no arrangement or directive to "give the Indians the wild rice they need..."
  

WI Mining Bill Degrades US/Canadian Water Agreement

Does the Wisconsin legislature - - forging ahead with a mining bill that will allow wetlands' filling and acidic mine runoff into the Lake Superior watershed - - know, or care, that US and Canadian officials just updated their international agreement that aims to reduce Great Lakes pollution and increase the water quality? From the US EPA:

On Sept. 7, 2012, Canada and the United States amended the Agreement. The updated Agreement facilitates United States and Canadian action on threats to Great Lakes water quality and includes measures to prevent ecological harm.

New provisions address the nearshore environment, aquatic invasive species, habitat degradation, and the effects of climate change. It also supports continued work on existing threats to people's health and the environment in the Great Lakes basin such as harmful algae, toxic chemicals, and discharges from vessels.

Thanks to this fine posting by Gary Wilson at Great Lakes Echo for the reference.

One State Senator's Exasperation At Legislating Arrogance

State Sen. Tim Cullen, (D-Janesville), author of an alternative measure to the GOP's mining bill on a fast track to adoption, called out his colleagues:

The overarching difference between the mining legislation I introduced and Senate Bill 1, a competing mining proposal, is that my bill will ensure the mining waste stays out of all of that water in the Penokee area. SB 1 allows waste to be dumped in water. For example, SB 1:

• Directs the state Department of Natural Resources to presume the destruction of wetlands is necessary for iron mining. This would reverse current law, which requires the minimization of damages to wetlands and directs the DNR to presume adverse impacts to wetlands are unnecessary.
• Creates loopholes to environmental regulations by drastically broadening the scope of exemptions that are permissible throughout the permitting process.
• Allows mining companies to destroy streams, rivers and lakes as long as minimal "compensation" measures are taken anywhere else in the state...

Why the authors of SB 1 never reached out to the Army Corps I will never understand.

The Bad River band, whose reservation is downstream from the mine site, is a sovereign nation and will have an enormous say in whether mining ever occurs in northern Wisconsin.

Yet it seems as though the authors of SB 1 intend to pass a bill without input from the tribes.

The fact that the authors of SB 1 do not acknowledge these absolute realities astounds me.

Journal Sentinel Op-Ed Criticizes The Paper, Opposes Mining Bill

The Journal Sentinel has published an opinion piece I posted a few days ago on this blog (the full version is here), and also at the newspaper's Purple Wisconsin site, that opposed the mining bill and the newspaper's editorial coverage of the issues.

You can read the opinion piece as it ran in the paper today, here:

After much back and forth on the merits and gaps in an iron mining bill being rushed to adoption by the GOP-controlled state Legislature, the Journal Sentinel Editorial Board Sunday found too many flaws in the bill (written by mining insiders) to support it - and, in its own words, "leans toward" (now there's a modifier) an alternative proposal by Sen. Tim Cullen (D-Janesville) unless the GOP bill is repaired.

But it still says the mine is "necessary."

The editorial is weak tea further diluted...

More Data, Commentary, About Gun Dangers In The Home

Ruth Marcus at The Washington Post gathers data and argument to show women are at greater risk when a gun is in an American home.

First, women are far more likely to be the victims of gun violence than to benefit from using a gun in self-defense... 

Women with a gun in the home were nearly three times as likely to be the victim of homicide than women living in a home without firearms, according to a 2003 study in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.

Regrettably, you could write this story on any given day - - like yesterday:

THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 2013 

Gun In The Home = Domestic Shooting 

Data show that guns in the home are far more likely to used by family members against each other, rather than against intruders for self-defense. 

Current Milwaukee case in point: 

A 27-year-old Army veteran who police say fatally shot his wife Sunday during a quarrel at the home they shared with their young daughter contends the victim committed suicide.

And I have cited this data before.