BP's Lake Michigan Spill Exceeds 1,500 Gallons

Bigger story in the LA Times than in some Wisconsin media.

We Await Tip-Off, And Walker's From-Vegas Tweet

He'll Tweet his 140 characters of post-game love, but today AdelsonFest outranks the Elite 8.

NY Times Piece Tells The World About Walker, Iron Mine Calamity

There has not been a better story written in mainstream media about the mine.

A must-read/must-resend-post-Tweet-and otherwise re-distribute outburst of journalism.

Newspaper Gives Hand To Investigators, Embattled Walker Administration

Scott Walker's crew - - given its unwavering respect for records' procedures during the secret emailing days that helped it win the Governorship in 2010  - - has rightly begun an investigation into who may have leaked confidential patient information that ended up in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about patient abuse on Walker's watch at the County Mental Health Complex.

We haven't seen this much love for political plumbers since the days of Richard Nixon - - Walker's role model, according to former Nixon legal counsel and fellow Watergater John Dean - - but hat tip to the aforementioned Journal Sentinel for helping investigators by noting that a Kelly Rindfleisch and other Walker aides were batting around the name of one Mental Health Complex resident/victim while Walker was in charge everything at Milwaukee County government - - hiring, staff coordination, record security, patient health, patient survival, etc.

That would be the same Kelly Rindfleisch who took a pity pot break to downplay to The Wall Street Journal her role during the Walkerites' good old days when his political and taxpayer-paid staffers worked together on secret emailing and on-the-job-GOP fund-raising and campaigning a few feet down the down the hall from then-County Exec SKW.

Looks like the newspaper, while protecting its First Amendment right to publish, and obligation to hold politicians and officials accountable, might just be tossing the Walker health investigation a road map to help it better define its search for the truth.

Outstanding public service journalism.

The Undeniable Consequences Of Climate Change

Right-wing talk radio and Fox 'News' TV continues to mislead its audiences about climate change - - extreme drought, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes and polar melting not withstanding - - but The New York Times shows the devastation already inflicted by changing climate in Bangladesh:

 “There are a lot of places in the world at risk from rising sea levels, but Bangladesh is at the top of everybody’s list,” said Rafael Reuveny, a professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University at Bloomington. “And the world is not ready to cope with the problems.”

Elmbrook Church Might Need Gun Check At Ladies' Room

The Wisconsin Legislature, Scott Walker and the NRA were all behind allowing concealed gun carrying into churches, but for crying out loud, at least make sure the safety is on if you're going to leave a semi-automatic handgun with a full magazine in the bathroom:

A semiautomatic handgun loaded with a full magazine, with the safety in the fire position, was found in a bathroom at Elmbrook Church about noon March 19...

A volunteer teacher at the church later called looking for her weapon, which she said she had set down in the bathroom and accidentally left behind. She told police she is normally very careful and was told she could recover the gun the next day.

Walker Distrustfulness Shown By Broken Deadlines, Fresh Fees In Casino Play

To Scott Walker's disregarded promise of 250,000 new private sector jobs you can add the added-and-never justified delays in his Kenosha casino decision and the tripling to $1.5 million in legal fees for his hand-picked attorneys who are helping him make the decision.

Details, here.

Fix The Potholes? Wisconsin Pols Buying More Lanes Instead

Media are telling us it's spring road construction season.

The language is interesting. The closings and detours and delays are so routine, so 'normal' they're considered seasonal - - like tulips and fish - - when, in fact, the spring road construction season is predictable because both political parties have campaigns to fund and there is no more reliable source of donations than road-builders.

But what's truly seasonal when it comes to roads and the calendar?

Potholes. 

A particularly tough winter has battered the pavement, motorists' nerves and wallets.Potholes, everywhere, with some worthy of building permits and environmental impact statements, but has the state, awash in surplus dollars, directed added funding to local street repair budgets that have been getting routine, budget-season reductions?

Even in a $43 million supplement of highway spending?

Nope.

The Government/Road-builder Complex run out of the State Capitol, and in satellite offices in nearby trade associations and lobbying shops, has chosen instead to pour extra millions of our tax dollars into more new lanes - - big-dollar projects that will, after a freeze-thaw cycle or two acquire their own axle-breaking-tire-popping cracks, splits and degradation.

Why not fix what we have first?

Because there are bigger profits to pocket and ribbons to cut and news releases to Tweet when adding new lanes than fixing the cracks and holes with lower-profit asphalt.

The Journal Sentinel notes the 'seasonal' big-ticket spending for just our region:

The state Department of Transportation has 34 projects underway or to begin soon in Milwaukee County, including multiple projects affiliated with Zoo Interchange construction. An additional 28 projects are underway in six surrounding counties...

In southeastern Wisconsin, 96 projects are started a year at a cost of $410 million on 
average. In 2014, the number of projects started will be 65, but some of these will be larger than usual, making the price tag $443 million.

There is nothing on the horizon to think this politicized and costly pattern can be broken. The multi-billion-dollar so-called 'freeway' expansion in Southeastern Wisconsin has years to go because it has not yet been fully extended into Walworth, Ozaukee, Washington and Western Waukesha Counties.

The Battle at Story Hill over widening and perhaps elevating I-94 in the City of Milwaukee near Miller Park against the neighbors' wishes is yet to be fought, and by the time the region's seven-county 'improvements' that originated with an unelected regional planning commission are completed, the Marquette Interchange will need another expansion.

And, of course, the politicians and road-builders will continue starving transit systems, and blocking passenger rail, so travel will be forced on to roads that congest and deteriorate and congest again.

Former Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist used to joke that balanced transportation in Wisconsin meant "half asphalt, half concrete," but anyone can take a look across Southeastern Wisconsin's pothole-pocked streets and see that concrete is winning.

Cross-posted at Purple Wisconsin.

Don't Be Fooled By Walker's Voting Hours Partial Veto

All it does is add back a few of the hours cut by the Legislature, and does not restore the important weekend hours that were of such value to people with weekday jobs, child-care obligations and transportation difficulties.

Voter suppression is still voter suppression.

UW-M Hosting April Bad River Band, Mining Discussions

Early notice. Mark your calendars:

American Indian Sovereignty and Natural Resources in the Western Great Lakes 

Monday, April 7 and Tuesday April 8, 2014, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee 

Union Theater (Monday) • Curtin Hall (Monday evening), and Wisconsin Room (Tuesday)

• What does Tribal Sovereignty mean?

• Why do Tribes have a say in resource development?

• What are the historic roots of the federal-tribal relationship?

Speakers • Singers • Film • ReceptionDay & Evening Events • Free & Open to the Public 

A two-day conference at UW-Milwaukee will explore the role of tribal sovereignty in resource management and development including speakers from the Bad River tribe explaining their experiences with the planned Penokee Mine. 

More info at AIS.UWM.EDU or on Facebook

No Surprise: WI State Senate Shelves Modest OWI Law Tweaks

Reliably under the thumb of special interests, the GOP-controlled State Senate will adjourn without passing minor changes in the state's notoriously weak drunk driving statutes.

Wisconsin is still the only state that treats most first-offense OWI traffic stops with mere municipal tickets, so the message to state residents and tourists alike is that from trails to highways the rolling pub crawl continues, and Wisconsin Is Still Open for Drunk Driving.

No Country For Fixing Old Potholes, Wisconsin

The Government/Road-builder Complex poured extra millions of your tax dollars into more new lanes - - projects that will, after a freeze-thaw cycle or two acquire their own axle-breaking-tire-popping cracks, splits and degradation - - because there are bigger profits to pocket and ribbons to cut in adding new lanes than in fixing the streets we already have:

The state Department of Transportation has 34 projects underway or to begin soon in Milwaukee County, including multiple projects affiliated with Zoo Interchange construction. An additional 28 projects are underway in six surrounding counties... 

In southeastern Wisconsin, 96 projects are started a year at a cost of $410 million on average. In 2014, the number of projects started will be 65, but some of these will be larger than usual, making the price tag $443 million.

Alcohol, WI Snowmobilers, And The More Things Change...

When I see a story like this about Wisconsin's ubiquitous, harmful embrace of alcohol...

Alcohol is main factor in Wisconsin's rise in snowmobile fatalities

I remember writing a series for The Milwaukee Journal more than 27 years ago that among the consequences of Wisconsin's drinking culture was all of Wisconsin's snowmobile fatalities in a recent year had been alcohol-related. (See the chart by right clicking to on page 10 after the jump).

The series was keyed to the drowning death of two teenagers in a downtown river.

Sound familiar? 

Walker Tweets To Evangelical Voters

He uses his official Twitter account to widely distribute a Bible verse.

My take: this  is a signal Evangelical to voters that he's their guy. Add that to his book,' national fund-raising effort and now foreign policy punditry - - anything to distract from his failed job-creation performance - -  and there's no doubt that he's running hard right for the 2016 GOP nomination.

And if First Amendment advocates question his use of the Twitter account to broadcast a religious message, all the better for Walker to get a boost from Fox and the Palin crowd while playing a conservative victim card that Ted Cruz will wish he'd dealt first.

Again, Walker's Wisconsin Is #35

First it was our stalled job growth. We're 35th.

Now, income growth since the recession, and what do you know? We're 35th!

Scott Walker, Foreign To Foreign Policy

Reading that Scott Walker is weighing in on and being taken seriously about foreign policy is a continuation of his Magical, Mystery Tour into early primary states, editorial board offices and Sunday network TV talking head studios.

Yes, we are to believe that Scott Walker - - Marquette University dropout, Legislative back-bencher, failed County Executive and far-right wing Gubernatorial tool with a penchant for documented false speaking - - is  somehow Presidential in stature, training and depth.

Worthy of access to and control over various red phones, Summit negotiations, situation rooms, nuke-proof bunkers and launch codes.

If you think Scott Walker projects Commander-in-Chief, you also think Beetle Bailey is an action figure, or Will Ferrell is a TV news anchor.

This is preposterous political theater, with the depth of fingernails down a blackboard.

BP Spills Tar Sand Crude Oil Into Lake Michigan

The leak came from the big BP oil refining complex in Whiting, Indiana, near Chicago, and is the plant where, a few years ago, a plan to release more ammonia into Lake Michigan was stopped by protests.

But where regulators did allow more mercury to be discharged.

Take this as another warning about the added risk of building an oil shipping dock operation in Northern Wisconsin, at Superior on the Big Lake.

Like I said the other day, oil spills and other forms of environmental contamination are necessarily 'somewhere else' stories.

Scott Walker Rewrites Old Slogan

Since Walker's off to Las Vegas for a Presidential campaign audition before a casino magnate who gave him $250,000 to survive the recall, and, with his wife donated $92 million to Republicans in 2012, Walker is proving that 'Money Talks and Bulls**t Hawks.'

Georgia Law Enacting NRA's Wish List

Yee-haw!

Giving felons the right to claim "Stand Your Ground," and allowing guns in bars and airports is just the beginning.

Check Out MATC's Annual Sustainability Summit

Always a great event, with broad sponsorship and participation. Program information, here.