Dude, have you legalized my spliff, yet?
Hey kids, what time is it? Time to take on the arrogant government class.
On a crowded general election ballot the people of Dane County this November 2 will be asked to register their opinion on a referendum issue of gravest concern to our Dane County Board.
No, not commuter rail.
Come on, think people! It is that issue that has riveted taxpayers, workers and families like no other. It is one that has roiled the public debate from tea party protest to town hall meetings. It's a pocketbook issue if ever there was one.
You got it: we'll be voting on "medical" marijuana. [Dane County voters to get say on medical marijuana]
The Dane County board set up an unelected regional transit authority with the power to borrow $127 million and tax us $38 million each and every year. But the full county board was not allowed to vote on putting commuter rail on the ballot. One member, Matt Veldran, bottled it up in his committee. He did so at the instruction of County Board Chairman Scott McDonell, himself a government employee in his day job, who is now running for county executive as the savior of taxpayer-supported government employees.
Government of the government, by the government, and for the government. The arrogance!
Leave the maryjane question blank
So, local town, village, and city officials in 46 different municipalities took matters into their own hands and put the issue on their local ballots. Voters in virtually all of Dane County except those of us in Madison and Fitchburg will see this question on their ballots:
"Shall commuter rail from Middleton to the Town of Burke be funded by an increase in the Sales Tax?"
Commuter rail proponents say we don't have enough information. Do we have enough information on medical marijuana?
They say, "Wait 'till we've developed a plan." But they have a plan. It's over 200 pages long. It's called Transport 20/20.
They say, "It's too early to vote." Yet, they've been planning for commuter rail for the last 12 years.
In fact, we're already paying for commuter rail -- $7 million so far and counting.
Instead, we're voting on medical marijuana. Or not. Join BlaskaBlog's campaign to leave this referendum question blank.
If Kathleen Falk, Dave Cieslewicz, Jay Allen, Scott McDonell, and Matt Veldran have a case to make for commuter rail they should make it now. Scott Walker is watching.
Milwaukee to Madison high-speed rail not popular, either
The St. Norbert College Survey Center poll, sponsored by Wisconsin Public Radio, found that 55 percent of those polled oppose building a high-speed rail line connecting Madison and Milwaukee. Only 44 percent said they support the $810 million project, which is to be paid for with federal stimulus money. Seventy-one percent said they were unlikely to use the train if it were built.
The St. Nubs poll also found that Republican Scott Walker has a 9-point lead over Democrat Tom Barrett, 50 percent to 41 percent, according to a poll released Monday. But Russ Feingold has narrowed the gap against Ron Johnson, who is only up by two points, 49-47 percent.
I believe the poll. Russ can be inspiring, Tom? Yawn. I've said it before: Democrats always finish strong.
Those evil business people
Hard to explain why "progressives" hate business people. But they do. They want to deny them their First Amendment free speech rights. They hate them for being successful. They criticize them for playing by the rules.
A man who took a company that employed two people and built it up to 120 employees, who takes a few prisoners into his shop at the request of the Department of Corrections to help them transition to freedom and responsibility, who sells -- for Chrissakes -- his products in China, who donates his time and efforts to charity. A citizen and non-politician who wants to give back to the community. EVIL!!!
So comes Democrat(ic) party attack dog Scot Ross and his mysteriously funded and Orwellian-named "One Wisconsin Now" to bray that the PACUR LLC paid no state income taxes. As brother Patrick McIlheran points out, Ross is either economically illiterate or just plain dishonest. PACUR LLC is a limited liability company. Like a lot of small businesses, including law firms, the profits are passed onto the owners, who pay those taxes out of their own personal income tax filings.
State Sen. "Chuck" Decker is complaining about money in politics?
State Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker of Wausau is accusing a national Republican organization of trying to buy the election with a big television ad purchase in a small TV market.
Sen. Decker is crying foul over the expenditure by the Republican State Leadership Committee, which he says will buy more than 350 negative TV ads in Wausau and Rhinelander. Decker says "it's about $320,000 which is an incredible amount of money." Superior Telegram.
Talk about chutzpah. Russ Decker, the disciple of "Do we have a relationship?" Chuck Chvala, crying about money in politics.
How is democracy 'threatened'?
No surprise that John Nichols' Capital Times endorsed Ben Manski. John is his boss at Ben's day job at a community organizing start-up called Liberty Tree. Ben is 100 percent certifiably Wobbly. Even Al Gore was too compromised for this Naderite. Fair enough.
But puh-lease, Comrade John. How can you write: "At a moment when democracy is as threatened as it was when La Follette joined the struggle ..."?
Democracy is threatened? Please to explicate? Election turnout is high, the ballot is crowded with candidates from the Left, Right, and Center. Voters are peaceably assembling, writing letters, posting yard signs, arguing the issues, donating their money -- with nary a police baton swinging in their direction.
What our Comrades at The Capital Times mean by "democracy is threatened" is its candidates on the Left are threatened. As for democracy - it's breaking out all over.
It's the law unless you play the race card
Here we go again in the Left's on-going crusade attempt to reverse the civil rights movement and subject the law to racial tests.
Two Milwaukee men who voted in the 2008 presidential election while they were still on probation for felonies have mounted a frontal-assault defense against charges they voted illegally.
[They] contend that Wisconsin's constitution, which prohibits felons from voting until their sentences - including probation and payment of fines and costs - have been completed, is itself unconstitutional because the effect of the ban is to disproportionately keep African-Americans like themselves from the polls. [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: 10-20-10]
So, if German-Americans account for a disproportionate number of DWI's, the law should raise the blood-alcohol content for that group above the 0.08 percent for everyone else?
Voter fraud? Ain't no voter fraud in Wisconsin! Just racism.
The culture of poverty
It is a shibboleth of the Left that poor people should blame others for their plight. (Snark alert:) No, poor people don't have poor ways. Poverty causes crime, not the other way around. Yeah, right! Let's blame those all-encompassing copouts, racism, capitalism, NAFTA, or -- when all else fails, "society."
Patrick McIlheran notes that "the conservative critique of ignoring culture's effect on poverty has for decades been exactly that unmarried motherhood is bad not because it violates many faiths' moral codes (though it does) but, rather, it produces bad effects on mothers, children and society."
PaddyMac referencesRobert Rector of the Heritage Foundation:
One of the goofier notions behind the War on Poverty is the idea that that those in the underclass behave differently than the middle class because they have less money - and, therefore, the way to improve behaviors is to give the poor more income. The U.S. already has "invested" over $15 trillion in anti-poverty spending based on this idea, and the problem has gotten markedly worse.
"The main problem for liberals in talking about the 'culture of poverty' is that any honest examination of behavioral roots of poverty will, almost certainly, diminish public support for the welfare state. Thus, any clear discussion of the links between poverty and behavior is to be scrupulously avoided."
Pelosi sclerosi
Only 29 percent of Americans view House Speaker Nancy Pelosi favorably; she gags 58 percent of us with a spoon. Leave it to the Dems to make a San Francisco liberal as their national figurehead. Or two Dane County liberals as co-chairs of the state Legislature's Joint Finance Committee.
Check out the Pelosi index. It shows that our Tammy Baldwin and Steve Kagen of the Fox Valley voted with Nancy Pelosi 100 percent of the time -- more even then Dave Obey, D-Porculus. Paul Ryan and Jim Sensenbrenner -- zero. Good going, guys!
In the Second District, Chad Lee has joined the hunt.