Preservation Appreciation Tour Ends With Artistic Surprise

Small world.

We recently enjoyed a nice few days with visitors from England.

And after showing off some historic Milwaukee neighborhoods, the Lakefront, the Art Museum - - both the old building and the new - - and Leon's Custard on S. 27th St. among other highlights, we decided to check out Cedarburg's well-preserved downtown and the re-purposed mill properties along Cedar Creek.

And when I walked into the Cedarburg Cultural Center, there was the work of Eddee Daniel, photographer, preservationist advocate for the fast-disappearing Milwaukee County Grounds, and all-around environmental ally. 

A sample:

Talk about a message along the lines of: If you preserve it, they will come. More about the show, here:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Co-curated by Frank Juarez + Melissa Dorn Richards

INDIANA GREEN 5th Year Anniversary at Cedarburg Cultural Center

Cedarburg Cultural Center 

W62 N546 Washington Avenue
Cedarburg, WI 53012

Exhibition Dates: May 3 – June 22
Reception: May 10, 6-9 pm

A catalog will be available for purchase.

Walker Misses Health Board Appointments' Deadline, But...

Look at it this way:

*  Walker has made seven of his 11 appointments to the oversight board that's supposed to better manage the Milwaukee Mental Health Complex. (Remember that a patient starved to death there, on Walker's watch, and his people wanted to bury settlement talks until after the 2010 gubernatorial election.)

*  And while he missed the Monday deadline to have made all his appointments, he is 64% of the way towards meeting that goal, which is a huge increase over his 42% success creating 250,000 private-sector jobs' he promised in one term.

*  And hey - - he's got a campaign to run, a John Doe to settle and other things on his plate:

Governor Walker @GovWalker · Jun 1

Late night dinner quesadilla at Qdoba: http://ow.ly/i/5LaKL 

Great Book Talk Monday By Increase Lapham's Biographers

And what better place than the rare book room at Milwaukee's gem of a library downtown to hear Wisconsin writers Martha Bergland and Paul Hayes talk about Wisconsin's first scientist, and read from his biography they just published:

Studying Wisconsin: The Life of Increase Lapham, Early Chronicler of Plants, Rocks, Rivers, Mounds and All Things Wisconsin.

Previewed here.

Reporting Confirms Norquist's River Development Vision

Glad to see the Journal Sentinel's take on the Milwaukee property boom along the water distributes the political credit and validates activist urban planning and investment: 

The idea of public walkways along downtown's riverfront originated in Mayor Henry Maier's administration. 

It was pushed by Maier's successor John O. Norquist, after he was elected in 1988.In 1991, [developer Gary] Grunau and others formed the Milwaukee RiverWalk District.

Two years later, Norquist and the Common Council approved spending around $10 million on filling in many of the gaps within the RiverWalk from Clybourn St. to Highland Ave. on the east bank, and Clybourn to Pleasant St. on the west bank. A pedestrian bridge at Highland was included...

Norquist expanded the RiverWalk into the Historic Third Ward and north of Schlitz Park. Additional segments, funded by a mix of city and private dollars, have been added during Mayor Tom Barrett's tenure.

Today, there are still gaps. But Milwaukee's RiverWalk runs almost 2 miles between the harbor and Humboldt Ave. And each new riverfront development, such as the 2007 completion of Manpower's headquarters in Schlitz Park, brings another RiverWalk segment.

Doyle, Others Share Credit For Fond du Lac Jobs

This business success story about the recovery of the US recreational boating industry focuses on long-time Fond du Lac manufacturer Mercury Marine - - but regrettably omits the union and leadership role played by then-Governor Jim Doyle, a Democrat, to prevent Mercury Marine from moving Fond du Lac jobs to its Oklahoma plant.

...Doyle said taxpayers throughout Wisconsin will give up to $70 million in state assistance, most of it in refundable tax credits.

There was a second, subsequent intervention in 2010 by Doyle, a Democrat, that guaranteed Mercury Marine would add jobs in Wisconsin, not Mexico:

Governor Jim Doyle today announced $5 million in performance-based incentives for Mercury Marine to bring 200 new jobs to Fond du Lac. 

Mercury Marine originally planned to locate the 200 assembly jobs in Mexico, but Governor Doyle worked closely with the company to ensure those jobs came to Wisconsin instead. 

Current GOP Gov. Scott Walker and the right-wing propaganda machine working overtime to paper over his failure to create the Walker-promised 250,0000 new private-sector jobs never miss a chance to demonize the positive roles that unions and the public sector play in the economy.

And they continue the misdirection by attacking Doyle - - though he has not been governor for three-and-a-half years - -  but Mercury Marine might have closed up in Fond du Lac had Doyle not used state financing and helped coordinate a broader deal to keep the firm's work and payroll in Wisconsin.

A package that included assistance from local governments, taxpayers, and union members, through contract concessions.

Democrats have allowed Walker and his allies to use Doyle as an on-going foil while distorting his record, and it's part of a political capitulation that buries the good things that Doyle did - - pushing Amtrak service, establishing the Great Lakes Compact - - and lets the right-wing set the parameters of the larger debate.

That needs to stop.

On Gay Marriage Decision, Walker Contradicted By Earlier Words, Vote

Scott Walker told media a few days before the court ruling Friday that struck down the state constitution's 2006 ban on same-sex marriage that he'd found out four years later during a news conference that the constitutional ban existed, and still knows little about it.

I think it was, you know, passed in 2006 by the people of this state, by a significant enough margin at that time, but whether it’s upheld in federal court, again, that’s not my area of expertise."

Question: What’s your feeling on if that same vote were held today, where do you think that would go? 

Walker: "I don’t know, it’s hard to say. Polls are one thing on any of these issues, but votes are completely different oftentimes. So I don’t know what I think." 

The only question I got in the 2010 election came in a forum by one of the members of the media, and I find out it was in the Constitution and it didn’t really have a bearing on who the governor was. And to me I don’t think anything’s changed since then."

The claims are preposterous and the record shows otherwise.

Note this June, 2010 Journal Sentinel story that ran during his primary race with Mark Neumann reported a) Walker voted for the 2006 ban, and b) reported that Walker was quite familiar with how the constitutional ban was working because he had already vetoed related legislation in November, 2009 as Milwaukee County Executive:

Walker and Neumann have taken different stances, with both saying they voted for the constitutional amendment in 2006. 

Walker said at a Milwaukee Press Club event this month he thought the domestic partnership registry contradicted the state constitution because it bans arrangements substantially similar to gay marriage. 

"I differ from the governor on that; I differ from Mayor Barrett on that," he said. 

He noted he vetoed a county resolution in November that would have allowed the same-sex partners of county workers to get benefits. The County Board upheld the veto by a one-vote margin. 

Walker Makes Van Hollen Block Courthouse Door

Though he's a defendant in the victorious lawsuit that established marriage equality as a right Wiconsin could not obstruct, our know-nothing Governor made it pretty clear as he headed for the tall grass that Van Hollen was the guy who needed to stop the happiness.

Same Sex Marriages OK'ed In More WI Counties

Republican Gov. Scott Walker and Atty. Gen. J.B. Van Hollen are losing human rights and legal credibility, county-by-county.

Even in Waukesha Countuu and others.
Rock County (Janesville, Paul Ryan's hometown).

Brown County (Green Bay):

First wedding done outside Brown County Courthouse. Others waiting. pic.twitter.com/6AE5x6Y9Um

On Gay Marriage, Scott Walker's Many Knows-Nothings

PolitiFact reported some classic Walker word salad about same-sex marriage a few days before a Federal judge struck down the ban that had been inserted into the State Constitution with Walker's continuing support. 

Note Walker's spin, denial, evasion and general unwillingness to give straight answers or volunteer much of anything about what he thinks, what might come next, etc. The transcript editing is mine, and begins with this question:

Question: "Do you believe the state will prevail, and do you also believe the ban ought to still be supported?"

Gov. Walker: "I don’t know. I’m not a lawyer, obviously... the Governor doesn’t have a say in that...it's something that most voters, most constituents don’t talk to me about...I’m not going to pretend to tell a federal judge, in that regard, what she or he should do about it...On this one, again, it’s up to the Attorney General...whether it’s upheld in federal court, again, that’s not my area of expertise."

Question: What’s your feeling on if that same vote were held today, where do you think that would go?

Walker: "I don’t know, it’s hard to say. Polls are one thing on any of these issues, but votes are completely different oftentimes. So I don’t know what I think...I don’t know what it means...I haven’t been widespread and outspoken about this, because that’s not what voters talk to me about. The only question I got in the 2010 election came in a forum by one of the members of the media, and I find out it was in the Constitution and it didn’t really have a bearing on who the governor was. And to me I don’t think anything’s changed since then."

Conservative GOP Assembly Candidate Opposes Highway J/164 Project

Tiffany Koehler calls for the cancellation of the dangerous and wasteful state highway expansion project in Washington and Waukesha Counties long fought by a grassroots coalition.

And she wants the funding redireced to municipalities for local road needs.

History and context here.

I am also told that there has been a shuffle of personnel involved in the project, including a new manager and regional boss.

A Positive Program For Wisconsin

[Updated Sunday, 10:30 p.m.] We're told that to win elections and the public debate in Wisconsin you have to be in favor of things and not merely opposed to the big-dollar, right-wing politicians running the show in Wisconsin. OK, here's a simple Top Ten 13 list of policy positives that doesn't even mention You-Know-Who:

*  Marriage equality.

*  Unfettered ballot access.

*  Preservation of water rights.

*  Endorsement of the Wisconsin Idea and its commitment to fair play by government.

*  Affordable health-care access for all.

*  Support for public schools and public employees.

*  Women's reproductive freedom and health services.

*  A DNR with a public agenda and an independently-selected agency secretary.

*  Fair funding for transit services.

*  Student debt reform.

New additions:

*  Tax reform equality.

* Restoration of Public Intervenor on environmental matters.

* Livable minimum wage.

Today's Mass Shooting; Thank The Gun Lobby

Today it's Las Vegas' turn, and cops are among the victims.

Only in America can every crazy, vengeful maniac shoot up the town.

Green Housing Adding Value To Milwaukee

Thermal heating. Solar panels. Green roofing. Electric car-charging. Recycled building materials. And more such projects by the same developers to come, in walkable Milwaukee neighborhoods. With a view! What's not to like?

Two Leading Wisconsin Writers Speak, Read Monday Downtown

Don't miss this free event Monday evening:

A Milwaukee Public Library Event in the Rare Books Room with Martha Bergland and Paul G. Hayes, authors ofStudying Wisconsin: The Life of Increase Lapham, Early Chronicler of Plants, Rocks, Rivers, Mounds, and All Things Wisconsin Monday June 9, at 6:00 pm Boswell Book Company is excited to welcome Martha Bergland and Paul G. Hayes, authors of Studying Wisconsin: The Life of Increase Lapham, Early Chronicler of Plants, Rocks, Rivers, Mounds, and All Things Wisconsin, for a talk and signing in the Rare Books Room on the second floor of the Milwaukee Public Library. Told in compelling detail through Lapham's letters, journals, books, and articles, Studying Wisconsin chronicles the life and times of Wisconsin's pioneer citizen-scientist. The Milwaukee Public Library is located at 814 W. Wisconsin Avenue in Milwaukee. In this long overdue tribute to Wisconsin's first scientist, authors Martha Bergland and Paul G. Hayes explore the remarkable life and achievements of Increase Lapham (1811-1875). Lapham identified and preserved thousands of botanical specimens. He surveyed and mapped Wisconsin's effigy mounds. He was a force behind the creation of the National Weather Service, lobbying for a storm warning system to protect Great Lakes sailors. Lapham's ability to observe, understand, and meticulously catalog the natural world marked all of his work, from his days as a teenage surveyor on the Erie Canal to his last great contribution as state geologist. Self-taught, Lapham mastered botany, geology, archaeology, limnology, mineralogy, engineering, meteorology, and cartography. A prolific writer, his 1844 guide to the territory was the first book published in Wisconsin. Asked late in life which field of science was his specialty, he replied simply, "I am studying Wisconsin." After her retirement from teaching English at Milwaukee Area Technical College, Martha Bergland took a short break from fiction to write an article on Lapham for Milwaukee Magazine. This break became five years of studying Increase Lapham. Bergland has written two novels, A Farm Under a Lake and Idle Curiosity and is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize. She lives in Glendale, Wisconsin. During 33 years at The Milwaukee Journal, science reporter Paul G. Hayes often relied on the work of Increase A. Lapham, whose home had been three blocks north of the newspaper office. After retiring in 1995, Hayes continued to write, often referring to Lapham and his contributions. This biography is a fitting finale to a fifty-year acquaintance. A native of Illinois, Paul and his wife Philia live in Cedarburg, Wisconsin.

Hold Walker, Van Hollen To Their "Defend The Constitution" Pledge

Friday's Federal court ruling that overturned Wisconsin's ban on same-sex marrriage was a wonderful day across the state for justice and equal rights.
The day was so good that you could even spot a silver lining in the reflexive, reactionary appeal of the ruling immediately announced by Republican Governor Scott Walker and GOP Attorney General J. B. Van Hollen, as they hoped to restore anti-gay discrimination to the Wisconsin Constitution.

The Wisconsin State Journal characterized the GOP officials' appeal this way

A spokeswoman for Republican Gov. Scott Walker said, “It is correct for the attorney general, on this or any other issue, to defend the constitution of the state of Wisconsin, especially in a case where the people voted to amend it."

Here's the important part of the spokeswoman's comment - - and it's not that bit about backing up people who for the marriage ban, because the court ruling affirmed that, in America, we don't put people's rights to a vote:

"it is correct for the attorney general, on this or any other issue, to defend the constitution of the state of Wisconsin..."

That's important because there's another section of the Wisconsin Constitution under assault right now by Walker & Co. on behalf of special interests, so let's hold these officials to their principle and have them get busy defending Article IX of the Wisconsin Constitution, The Public Trust Doctrine, which declares that the waters of the state belong to all the people of the state.

Subsequent rulings and interpretations even direct the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to defend the Doctrine by intervening on behalf of the public in situations where water rights and access are threatened - - as the DNR itself explains in detail on its web site.

Walker and Van Hollen should be defending the state constitution and the public interest against surface and groundwater appropriation, pollution or overuse by the proposed open-pit iron mine in Northwest Wisconsin, various mega-dairies and corporate farms, frac sand mines, and other giveaways of the public's water.

Walker and Van Hollen ignored the state constitution's protection of voting rights through their Voter ID laws and other fresh restrictions on absentee voting.

Who better now to make amends for their earlier constitutional failings by now defending Wisconsinites' constitutionally-protected water rights in Article IX than our newly-minted state constitutionalists, Scott Walker and J. B. Van Hollen? 

Back to basics to reclaim historic Wisconsin values.

Federal Judge Strikes Down WI Ban On Marriage Equality

@ACLUofWisconsin Breaking: ACLU of Wisconsin wins #FreedomToMarry in #WI!

On, Wisconsin, where we should not have put discriminatory language in our state constitution.

And props to ACLU-Wisconsin for another big win, along with funding for transit and blocking Voter ID in Wisconsin.

Dems Should Reclaim, Expand Basic Wisconsin Values

*  Democrats in Wisconsin have ceded to Republican Gov. Scott Walker and his party too much power over language and messages, and the 2014 campaign to win back the state is the best time to turn the tables.

Republicans call themselves a values party, but nothing could be farther from the truth.

Let's get back to basic Wisconsin values, and tradition, law, and history.

* Start with the Wisconsin Idea - - especially since Republicans have abandoned it:

Progressive Republicans...believed that the business of government was to serve the people. They sought to restrict the power of corporations when it interfered with the needs of individual citizens. The Progressive Movement appealed to citizens who wanted honest government and moderate economic reforms that would expand democracy and improve public morality. 

*  Spread the word about The Public Trust Doctrine. 

Explain that it's the part of the Wisconsin Constitution that says the waters of the state belong to all the people of the state - - which means that groundwater isn't the property of any big corporation that wants to contaminate or drain your trout streams or fill our lakes, and that wetlands should not be used as rock waste dumps throughout the Bad River watershed in the Penokee Hills to serve an out-of-state coal company's proposed, big open-pit iron mine.

Walker's contempt for The Public Trust Doctrine goes back to the eighth day of his term in office when he had a special bill introduced in the Legislature to exempt a donor from what was an ongoing Department of Natural Resources review of a development project that would have required the filling of a wetland near Lambeau Field.

And ever since, Walker and his Legislative and special interest allies have targeted The Public Trust Doctrine, narrowed it, weakened it - - and in the process - - continue to give it away.

Along with your right to appreciate the natural environment and to pass Wisconsin's water legacy to your children and grandchildren

*  Demand a revival of a citizens'-focused Wisconsin DNR.

This means ending the appointment of the agency Secretary by the Governor and the politicized installing of senior staff like Walker's "chamber-of-Commerce" DNR leadership team that is there to ignore The Public Trust Doctrine.

And who have failed to enforce environmental regulations in place to protect public health while giving polluters and political insiders relatively free reign to trash the land.

And who have shut citizen stakeholders out of policy-making so that favored insiders, like hounders killing bears and wolves are encouraged to run roughshod over open lands, wildlife habitat and animal populations that, like the water, belong to all the people of the state - - and are supposed to be in the hands of the DNR as trustee.

Team Walker's abuses of resources, public processes and elemental fair play are not limited to environmental degradation and special-interest policy-making, either.

Voter ID and other ballot machinations are designed to twist the most basic of public resources - - law and legislating - - and skew democratic procedures for partisan opportunity

The manipulation of public offices, taxpayer-paid staffers and a fair election process were and are at heart of John Doe I and II.

We need a new, broad embrace and redefinition of Wisconsin Ideas to keep the environment and the government open, fair and clean.

As Predicted, Huge Dairy Manure Spill Hits WI Waters

I was busy this morning, so had just just finished reading this sent by a friend:

As Dairy Farms Grow Bigger,
New Concerns About Pollution 

Dairy operations in the U.S. are consolidating, with ever-larger numbers of cows concentrated on single farms. In states like Wisconsin, opposition to some large operations is growing after manure spills and improper handling of waste have contaminated waterways and aquifers.

And, literally, a minute later, saw this breaking story at JSonline:

A large Memorial Day manure spill polluted a Fond du Lac County creek and washed into Lake Winnebago, the Department of Natural Resources said Thursday. 

The spill, estimated at 50,000 gallons, killed fish on hundreds of feet in Pipe Creek, about a mile from Lake Winnebago. Dead fish have also been found in the lake, the DNR said... 

The spill occurred in the early morning hours of Memorial Day when a contractor working for Lake Breeze Dairy of Malone began spreading manure from a lagoon that was connected to a long pipe.

But don't worry: The DNR is on the case...the same agency that is green-lighting even bigger dairy operations and their airborne manure spraying.

Wisconsin Officials Under Alcohol Lobbies' Influence

Because we're the boozy (and only) state where a first-time-caught drunk driving arrest leads to a non-criminal ticket:

*  This is not a surprise:

Wisconsin lawmakers fail to act on drunken driving

*  Neither is this:

Repeat drunk drivers back on the road 

*  And certainly not this from WisDOT:

"Wisconsin has the highest rate of drunken driving in the nation." (But has a task force about it.)

*  Nor this today from Channel3000.com, Madison:

Members of drunken driving task force resign, cite bar owner influence. More information from the Journal Sentinel.

*  Or this:

A traveling beer garden is hitting Milwaukee County

Ron Johnson Appears With Climate Know-Nothing All-Stars

Senator Sunspots mades a video appearance along with Louis Gohmert, Marco Rubio, Rick Santorum and other science-haters.

WI Assembly Speaker Vos Believes Legislating Is Wrong, 'Artificial'

Consider this weird dismissal of the essence of the job by Robin Vos, WI GOP Assemblyman from Rochester - - and also the powerful Speaker of the body - - as he discussed why the Legislature would not be raising the minimum wage in Wisconsin from its poverty-enforcing $7.25/hourly rate:

“I’m not a big supporter of artificially increasing the minimum wage. I think the marketplace is a much better way to go,” Vos said. 

Speaker Vos might want to consider stepping aside for someone who sees value in human activity on behalf of other humans. 

Food For Thought On Walker's Twitter Feed

For the record:

Governor Walker @GovWalker · May 22

Another day. Another brown bag lunch: http://ow.ly/i/5ENy

Photo on 2014-05-22 at 12:54.jpg

 Report Abuse

GovWalker

Posted 13 days ago\

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Governor Walker @GovWalker · Jun 1

Late night dinner quesadilla at Qdoba: http://ow.ly/i/5LaKL 

Truth-In-Headlines. Seriously

Sheriff David Clarke: You just can't take him seriously

Far Right's Talking Point Amensia Reveals New Obama Derangement Outbreak

It was only a few months ago that the right was ripping Obama for NOT releasing the Taliban captive Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl:

Obama leaves American POW Sgt. Bowe Robert Bergdahl to Rot in Afghanistan – Provides Only Excuses

Another Walker NY Times Story, And, Again He Takes The Hit

Props to the blog MAL Contends and others who kept pushing all the way to today's New York Times the incredible story about the former US Marine from Wisconsin whose career an obstinate Scott Walker is derailing.

These days, when Walker is in the Times, he looks like he's without a heart and a brain.

Here also is the MAL Contends blog update.

We Can't Complain Much About NC River Coal-Ash Dumping

Because Wisconsin and Michigan have been allowing daily, spring-to-fall coal ash dumping by the multiple ton into Lake Michigan by the ferry SS Badger.

For decades.

There was big outrage in Illinois about it in 2011, but in WI, pretty much crickets.

Worse, Walker got into the act by asking the feds for added dumping permissions.

North Carolina information, here.

Walker Floats Stupidest Jobs-Promise Fail Excuse

Our pass-the-buck Governor has previously blamed Obamacare, Syrian fighting, Jim Doyle (man, that's so 2010), numbers, Act 10 protests, the 2012 recall election, Congressional fiscal cliff antics and government itself for his failed signature campaign promise to create 250,000 new private-sector jobs in one term, but on Mike Gousha's Sunday TV show last weekend, Walker came up with the most absurd yet:

"the current election cycle." (And, for good measure, the recall election, again. So 2012.)

This is like your basketball team's seasoned point guard promising to score 25 points a game, only netting ten per contest after nearly four years, and blaming his air balls on crowd noise.

Still available as excuses to Walker: Falling Beanie Baby prices. That thing that girl said in the cafeteria last year. Crocs.

GOP AG Candidate Schimel's OWI Wimp-Out

So do we really want a Wisconsin Attorney General with a 'four-strikes-and-you're-out' philosophy?

First-offense-caught drunken driving is already but a mere ticket in our booze-troubled state, though it's a criminal misdemeanor in DC and all 49 other states.

But Brad Schimel, the Waukesha County DA and GOP candidate for Attorney General is ducking responsibility and leadership while looking for votes from alcohol servers and heavy-drinking customers with this weak-kneed stand on drunken driving:

"once you've gotten a fourth offense, every fourth offense should be a felony."

Walker, Intolerant Far-Right Driving Away Entrepreneurs, Creative People

[Updated 1:45 p.m.] So Wisconsin is not where young people want to start their businesses.

Surprise? Hardly.

Scott Walker and his party's far-right-financed talk radio megaphones are driving an increasingly tolerant, diverse and environmentally-sensitive generation to run for the borders - - Chicago, the Twin Cities, further, anywhere to escape the propaganda, the policies and the anger behind the GOP/Tea Party message:

'We politically dismiss the very cities in which you have been studying and where you'd most likely live should you start a business here. 

'We obstruct the modern urban rail lines upon which you and your car-free friends are favoring, and we have been doing that to Milwaukee for nearly two decades. We know many young college graduates prefer transit and bike lanes, but we starve those modes over road-building because that's where we get a lot of campaign money, and other big GOP funders own the fossil fuel sector.

[Side note: Urban writer and thinker Richard Florida heard complaints years ago from an invited group of young business people in downtown Milwaukee who'd returned to Wisconsin, and liked the Big City/Third-Fifth ward walkable lifestyle, but who said out loud on their relocation here: "Where's the light rail?" True story. I was there.]

'We are working overtime to make it harder for minorities to vote, as well all city-dwellers, because we know you tend to vote Democratic.  

'We fear your diversity. We have outlawed same-sex marriage. We even debated secession at our most recent state party convention because we suffer from Obama Derangement Syndrome, a form of one-party hysteria. 

'We much preferred an America that looks, behaves and feels like 1952, where everyone knew their place. We are crushing public health and reproductive services for women. We openly disrespect  Native Americans by legalizing disparaging school logos at the very time there is pressure in the Nation's Capital to end the practice.  

'Our narrow definition of outdoors enjoyment has less to do with low-impact stewardship and more to do with what consumptive and destructive lobbies want, like more ATV trails, gun ranges and the use of dogs and traps to help kill wolves considered spiritually crucial to Ojibwe people who are among the original inhabitants here and who ceded the very lands up north now being heavily disrespected and exploited. 

'For good measure, Wisconsin government under Walker has allowed a mining company run by political donors to help write a special bill to enable their out-of-state coal-mining business to dig the world's largest open-pit iron mine very close to the Bad River Ojibwe's reservation and wild-rice, water-dependent rice beds.  

'The company was allowed to monitor the proposed mining site with assault-rifle-toting-but-not-properly-licensed 'guards' even though the site owners receive tax breaks in exchange for keeping it open to the general public. Then the same special-interest water carriers wrote another bill which Walker signed to close off that access. 

'In fact, Walker and his people are discouraging everyone's access to the outdoors, and state waters which are Constitutionally-held in trust for the public, by filling wetlands, mining polluting sand, expanding mega-daries with waste disposal problems, de-regulating groundwater supplies, allowing decades more algae pollution in streams by turning the state's environmental regulatory agency, the DNR, over to what Walker called "a chamber of commerce mentality.' 

In a nutshell, Walker and his allies are saying to young, visionary, open-minded young people - - 'hit the road' - - and are continually widening over-built and expensive highway lanes at the expense of other state spending, clean air, water land and open space - -  to facilitate their escape.

Despite Right-Wing Noise, Coal-Burning Cuts Bring Big Benefits

[Updated 4:01 p.m., with link quoting 30% goal by 2030. Further updated, 9:50 p.m.]

The US Environmental Protection Agency will release on Monday its long-awaited plan to bring about a reduction in the amount of polluting coal that utilities burn to generate electricity.
According to The White House Blog:

Today, as part of the President’s Climate Action Plan, the EPA proposed new carbon pollution standards for power plants. These standards represent a commonsense proposal that will have huge benefits for all Americans. In fact, for every dollar of investment spurred by this proposal, there is roughly seven dollars’ worth of health benefits in return.

Right-wing talk radio and its energy-sector special interest allies will tell you that this means the sky will fall, that we will be plunged into darkness and joblessness - - just as they told you in earlier End Times That Did Not Happen that the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, Medicare, vehicle emission standards and the US Surgeon General's Report on Smoking would shred the Constitution, kill jobs, or force us to pedal one-speed bikes to work wearing Mao jackets.

What the EPA's plan will do is give the states - - note that, please - - substantial flexibility to hit modest carbon-emission reduction targets and thus reduce the massive tonnage of noxious gases that are warming and changing the climate, drying the Great Plains and igniting the US West, melting the glaciers, raising sea levels, turning hurricanes into costly, killer super storms and poisoning your kids and grandparents' lungs.

Here's an example, posted tonight, on The Washington Post website, about climate-change influenced high tides routinely flooding Virginia.

Now.

The Washington Post's Greg Sargent has posted a solid analysis of the proposal's political impacts.

Im Wisconsin, I would expect Gov. Scott Walker to use the proposal as accelerant against the President as he did over Obamacare, federally-paid Medicaid expansion or the Amtrak train line to Madison and now-shuttered Milwaukee-based assembly plant which Walker killed to boost his national anti-Obama role, standing with corporate funders and Tea Party cred.

But Walker made his energy conservation responsibilities and Wisconsin's compliance more difficult because he obstructed clean-air, job-creating wind farm construction, and reduced state government energy conservation programming and other initiatives designed to reduce carbon emissions.

His hand-picked "chamber-of-commerce"leadership at the DNR has not updated the agency's climate change page since June 18, 2012 - - a fact I have cited on this blog often, along with notices that the agency had scrubbed content and links after Walker's election because they noted the work of the Doyle administration, Walker's go-to-excuse.

Walker did not set the state on a greener path and worse, already took the Koch brothers-inspired pro-fossil-fuels' pledge.

And they already have our Sen. Ron Johnson in their pocket.

Accidentally Deleted Spate Of Comments

Sorry. My cell phone FUBAR. Please resend.

Awaiting Nine-Star General Ron Johnson...

To join other GOP warmongers bashing the rescue of the lone American soldier held in Afghanistan.

AK-47 Is A Bad Party Favor. And One Party's Favorite

In Texas, GOP delegates are encouraged to bring their AK's to the party.

In Florida, an even worse party idea.

Beware Public-Sector Privateering

Good lessons in this piece about privatization of public services should Scott Walker propose privatizing publicly-financed highways in Wisconsin and turning them into profit-making tollroads.

Remember that Walker has been given the right to sell state, public assets with virtually no controls, and that he wanted to sell or lease Milwaukee County's Mitchell Airport when he was the County Executive.

Santa Barbara Mass Killings Bring Out GOP, Tea Party Worst

A GOP state senator and US Senate candidate in Iowa called the recent Santa Barbara mass killings "an accident."

But the Tea Party figure and gun ownership advocate Joe the Plumber went further in an open letter to the parents of the children whom Santa Barbara shooter gunned down:

"...your dead kids don't trump my Constitutional rights."