What The Right Thinks Of Walker, And You, Progressives

From a columnist in The Washington Times:

Governor Scott Walker has still been too patient for my tastes. He has not had his police force or security detail use rubber bullets or fire hoses on the Moveon and SEIU protesters in his state...

Governor Scott Walker may be the next Ronald Reagan because he understands what to do with people sworn to his destruction. He crushes them. More importantly, he bankrupts them...

The only way to deal with unions is to bankrupt them. The only way to deal with leftist protesters is to bankrupt them. When their choices are eating hot food and sleeping indoors or freezing to death outside while protesting, some of them may decide that starvation is not worth the cause.

Governor Walker may never be willing to break out the batons and crack skulls like SEIU would, but at least he is willing to keep enacting policies designed to let leftists spend every last dollar in their bleeding wallets.

This is why there is hope for Wisconsin while much of the rest of America and the world is on fire.

May liberals keep destroying themselves until they stop smoking the crack pipe of their own self-righteousness. Since they will never stop, may their drug habit of rage deplete their life savings until they either enter detox or become walking zombie lunatics less coherent than Al Gore and Howard Dean.

As Republicans debate in Iowa, I will support any candidate who vows to imitate Scott Walker on a national level. Leftist protesters will learn how to assemble calmly and peaceably, or a law and order crackdown that will make Kent State seem like a Tea Party walk in the park should take place.

To dream the impossible dream...where leftists learn human behavior, either voluntarily or by force.

Eric Golub is an independent writer for the Communities.

Waukesha's Falling Water Demand Could Alter Course Of Lake Michigan Diversion Request

News of falling water usage in the City of Waukesha just as its application for a Lake Michigan diversion begins a review that starts with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and may end with a similar vetting by companion regulators in the seven other Great Lakes states.

Water usage in the city is down because of mandated conservation measures, slow growth and wet weather; the amount sought in the diversion application would drop further if the roughly one million gallons daily that could be allocated via the diversion to the Town of Waukesha were withdrawn.

That would remove from the application the issue of water-for-growth, as well as the political matter of the Town's inclusion in the application without it having asked to be there.

These are not insignificant issues, as the Town and City have broad ares of disagreement over water and border questions, and as a document and plan, the Great Lakes Compact is first and foremost about water management and preservation, not water dispersal.

The disclosure of the City's reduced usage puts a different yet helpful light on the application, which must be approved by all eight Great Lakes to be implemented.

It does not eliminate Waukesha's need for a cleaner water source, but it does not strengthen the city's case for an exception to the no-reasonable-alternative standard in the Great Lakes Compact, under which the city is seeking this precedent-setting diversion.

When Republicans Run Against The EPA, They Are Running Against You And Me

GOP candidates are ginning up the base by bashing the Environmental Protection Agency.

And while that may play well with the Chamber of Commerce, or the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, or the people who want to run a tar sands crude oil pipeline from Canada to Texas, it is a slap at everyday Americans who dislike asthma air, assume clean tap water, or expect their kids to be able to swim at a safe beach and haul in an edible fish.

And like having an ally to make sure these are priorities, not accidents or privileges available to the wealthy.

Tearing apart environmental protections that benefit the common good, whether at the EPA, or Wisconsin's DNR, make please special interests - - oil drillers, strip miners, utility executives, land speculators - - but they degrade everyday life and the landscape for the other 99% of us.

Candidates who use the EPA and "regulation" as straw men may win straw polls, but the do nothing good for the rest of us.

The suspense builds! Will Tommy run? Ho, hum

So Tommy the T is going to announce that Jim Klauser and J. B. Van Hollen will be co-chairs of his "prospective" Senate campaign.

How long can he drag this out? And how long will the news media keep lapping it up?

He could give lessons to Bret Favre, whoever he is.

The last we heard Tommy was waiting to see what Russ Feingold was going to do. That's they key. Tommy doesn't think he can beat him, but no doubt is beginning to think Russ isn't running.

Here is the non-story.

Holperin And Wirch Put The Lie To Talk Radio Cotton Candy

Call it one for the good guys.

It was refreshing to see Bob Wirch and Jim Holperin returned to their Senate seats, as neither veteran Democrat did anything wrong except help block immediate passage of a bogus "budget repair bill."

Talk radio whipped up their temporary departure into a political sin - - "flee bagging" - - but in the end, voters, as they had done earlier with Dave Hansen - - returned the Dems to office.

Voters, however, did boot two Republican Senators, leaving them with a wobbly majority in the Senate.

Blocking the Senate vote on Walker's proposal, and forcing him to recraft the bill, was a public service that never fairly computed or conflated as equal to the sneakiness in Walker's approach to collective bargaining or the legitimacy of the bill in the first place.

So give the Dems credit, and the voters, too, for returning good legislators to the Senate and proving that talk radio is insubstantial and insincere.

Gear Up 4 Walker.

Let's talk the recall next step; My $1,000 is Pledged.

Rule-Free Colonies On Ocean Stilts? Fitwalkerstan May Offer More Amenities

Why build your rule-free libertarian colony out in the ocean when Koch-inspired conservatives are busy creating a de-regulated paradise Right here in the former Wisconsin?

As The Dow Plummeted, Limbaugh Said Obama Would Next Take The Farms

More race-baiting from the guy who is still hoping Obama fails:

The true leader of the Republican Party predicted Obama would seize property in the US the way Mugabe did to whites in Zimbabwe, Limbaugh said.

This is how the country's Talk-Radio-Fear-Monger-In-Chief does his dirty work.

And when he needs a guest host, Mark Belling is in the rotation. Nice.

Cruised Past 1,000,000 Hits Earlier This Month

Didn't notice then, but thanks to all the people who wade through all this.

If you are interested, Google says the following are the ten most accessed items since it began keeping score about two years ago:

Some Wisconsin State Workers Are Told Big Brother ... Apr 17, 2011

Kagan's Real Value Jul 7, 2010

Pat Lucey Withdraws Prosser Endorsement, And Endor... Mar 31, 2011

Madison Attorneys Allege Illegal Conduct By Republ... Mar 3, 2011

Walker Budget Eliminates Transit As Transportation... Mar 1, 2011

Tuesday Wisconsin Recall Elections Test Grover Nor... Aug 8, 2011

How To Get Hired By Scott ("We're Broke") Walker Apr 4, 2011

Tracking Walker's Tax Cut Promises; Truckloads For... Oct 8, 2010

With Weak Walker Polling Data, Conservatives Quest... Mar 28, 2011

Cathy Stepp Said To Be In Play For DNR Secretary Dec 29, 2010

Before A Walker Recall - - Voter Education, Assistance A Must

The Voter ID law erects barriers to registration and voting beginning in 2012, so any plan to circulate recall petitions to get Walker on a recall ballot have to be preceded by strong Voter ID and registration education and assistance activities in cities and on campuses where the new law's intent to suppress turnout is aimed.

Recall strategies, schedules, tactics and budgets can be debated and honed - -even delayed or canceled - -  but the first order of business after the conclusion of Tuesday's final State Senate recall elections is to begin a formal, detailed and broad public education campaign about the new law's registration and voting requirements and procedures:

*  A systematic effort to let people know what they need to do to get an official, valid voting ID, and where and when to get it.

* What they need to do about their ID and their registration if they move prior to an election.

* What to do of they forget or lose their ID.

* Development of simple, ubiquitous bullet-point posters, leaflets, and advertising rack cards for bus interiors, bus stops, newspaper boxes, community bulletin boards, libraries, service agencies, hospital waiting rooms, television, radio and Internet public service ads, and other outlets.

In language that is standardized as much as possible, and that is translated into Spanish and Hmong.

First things first.

Holperin Wins -- Get Ready, Walker

Wirch Wins Re-election

Outstanding hold for Dems

How sweet it is! Trifecta

Wirch, Holperin and the Brewers. 

National Commentators See Up And Downsides Of Last Tuesday's Recalls

Most progressives in Wisconsin, I'm betting, have felt the differing emotions in analyses of the Aug. 9 recalls expressed here and here.

And even more so as the day proceeds and we wait for the results from Kenosha and upnorth.

Suburbanites, Again, And Their Illegal Gun Trafficking

Last time, Pewaukee.

This time, Wauwatosa.

I see a new TV show based on "The Wire," except it's set in suburbia.

Rick Perry, You're Not Calling In To A Talk Radio Program

So newly-minted frontrunner and post-Civil War secessionist Rick Perry is one of those Tea Party conservatives with a Michael Savage talk radio mentality who goes Right for the jugular, reports The Washington Post.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, making his maiden campaign swing in Iowa after jumping into the race for the Republican presidential nomination, suggested Monday night that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke would be committing an act of treason by printing more money between now and November 2012.

Responding to a question about the Federal Reserve at a campaign event in Cedar Rapids, Perry said: “If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I don’t know what y’all would do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous, or treasonous, in my opinion.”

No doubt Michele Bachmann, vying for the soul of the GOP/Tea Party/Conservative base, will have to meet Perry's craziness by calling for Bernanke to be burned at the stake.

This is fringe stuff. Weird and scary.

Water Over The Dam: Some Concerns About Waukesha Water On Record Back To Early 2006

Environmental and conservation groups have sent the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources detailed questions and suggestions in response to the agency's call for guidance as it reviews Waukesha's precedent-setting and controversial application under the Great Lakes Compact for a diversion of water from Lake Michigan.

It's a thoughtful, scientific and forward-looking response, which I reprinted in its entirety, Monday.

Additionally, the City of Milwaukee also weighed in. The DNR will sift through all these comments. It's part of the way the agency is going about setting in motion a full study, called an Environmental Impact Statement, and will take months to write before the public again will be asked to comment.

You can follow the DNR's processes, and access a trove of records, at a web page it has created for the Waukesha proposal, here.

But here is the amazing thing: One of the groups, and a local one at that - - the Waukesha Environmental Action League, or WEAL - - has been making formal submissions on these matters, often covering the same territory, since February, 2006 - - 66 months ago!

What is there about the City of Waukesha water planning process that is so insular, so resistant to input and so impervious to change that the same local advocates would be raising some of the same issues, over and over again after five-and-a-half years?

For the record - - in April, 2010, I posted an item about a round of public comments on the Waukesha water plan, (more, here), and among the statements from WEAL 16 months earlier are their concerns, including how much time had already elapsed in this Kabuki drama:

In November 2008, the City of Waukesha and Waukesha Water Utility (WWU) officials called upon WEAL and other [Compact Implementation Coalition] CIC member organizations to help them develop an application (and application process) that would be precedent-setting in its excellence, thoroughness and transparency--and use best available science and practices to support its case that Waukesha needs another water source. 

The CIC response was seven pages of thoughtful, thorough questions, and expertise provided courtesy of attorneys, biologists, health providers, scientists, and activists, representing experts and average citizens of the SE Wisconsin and the state... 

When responses to the CIC questions were finally received in June 2009, many answers were incomplete, vague or confusing, evaded the intent of the question or were not directed to the question asked...

In many respects, our concerns and comments have changed little since WEAL first formulated a series of questions for the City of Waukesha Common Council in February of 2006.

The Great Lakes Compact counts on states to honor public input as decisions are being about whether diversions like the one Waukesha wants are desirable or necessary - - and as we speak, there are indications that Waukesha may not need all the water it wants, and would need less if the Town of Waukesha decides it does not want to be roped into the bargain; it would be hard to imagine Wisconsin officials being able to make the case to the other seven Great Lakes states (each has a veto) that between 2006 and today, public input has been sought and truly respected.

Turn Out For Holperin, Wirch

Hat's off to the organizers, home-grown and visiting, who are working like demons today to help Jim Holperin, Conover, and Bob Wirch, Kenosha, hold their seats against a Tea Party talk radio host and Chicago-based corporate attorney, respectively.

Let's not water down last week's gain of two Democratics in the State Senate, or give the forces of Karl Rove and Grover Norquist anything to celebrate.

The elections of the 9th were not a knockout, but the GOP took a major body blow. Momentum is on the Democrats' side, with much work left to do.

Failed Stewardship: Invasive Species Have Killed Lake Michigan Commercial Fishing

Dan Egan is correct to call our attention to an environmental catastrophe that tells us more than we'd really want to know about humankind's trashing of Lake Michigan.

Setting Attendance Record, State Fair Overcomes Mob Violence, Talk Radio Fear-Mongering

More good news about the State Fair and the people who support it.

Unlike our agenda-driven conservative talkers.