Mark Green. Governor/Business Czar/Dictator

Mark Green recently announced his plans for Wisconsin's business climate. Not surprisingly, he seems to think the answer is for more autonomy. Like his idols in the Bush Administration, he wants more unchecked, non-transparent executive control. Of course, with the stellar job that Congress has been doing dishing out pork and tax breaks to big business, we certainly can trust Mark Green to do a complete 180 if he were governor, right? Not so much. More like a complete 360.

Check out the analysis of Green's "ideas" from Paul Soglin.

http://www.waxingamerica.com/2006/08/green_misses_by.html

Or from Xoff. (Bill Christofferson)

http://www.wisopinion.com/blogs/2006/08/got-jobs-need-money-call-gov-green.html


I think we've had enough of these kinds of self-serving "solutions", don't you?

Busy, Busy, Busy.

I am going to be a bit sporadic on the blog, as I've been out and about quite a bit and not around a computer. I'm probably going to be "bulk blogging" in the future. Maybe every few days I'll drop in a handfull of blogs. That allows me to keep on walking and talking.

The Grant County Fair is coming up in a few days in Lancaster. (23rd-27th) Stop by our booth and have a visit. I look forward to it.

War Profiteers And Local Elections

Have you heard of the group "All Children Matter?" They were pretty active in the 2004 elections in Wisconsin. It sounds like a wonderful organization, doesn't it? I only wish it were true. Here's a brief write up by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign on there activities in '04.

http://www.wisdc.org/ind04issueads.php

Of particular interest is the family behind the group.

This group is headed by Michigan multimillionaire Dick DeVos, whose family
is connected to Amway Corporation. DeVos' wife Betsy served for several years as
the chair of the Michigan Republican Party. Her brother, Erik
Prince, is the founder and owner of Blackwater Security Consulting, the
private tactical training facility providing security forces in
Baghdad. School choice advocate George Mitchell represents the group in
Wisconsin, and has said ACM spent more than $500,000 to influence state
legislative elections in 2004.

DeVos is running for governor in Michigan, so I don't know how active All Children Matter will be this year.

I put in bold the more interesting part dealing with Blackwater security. They have been doing very well for themselves in the Iraq War.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060828/scahill

Government records recently obtained by The Nation reveal that the Bush
Administration has paid Blackwater more than $320 million since June 2004 to
provide "diplomatic security" services globally. The massive contract is the
largest known to have been awarded to Blackwater to date and reveals how the
Administration has elevated a once-fledgling security firm into a major
profiteer in the "war on terror."

But I'm sure they are an honest company doing an honest day's work, right? Ummm...not so much.

A heavily redacted 2005 government audit of Blackwater's WPPS contract proposal,
obtained by The Nation, reveals that Blackwater included profit in its overhead
and its total costs, which would result "not only in a duplication of profit but
a pyramiding of profit since in effect Blackwater is applying profit to profit."
The audit also found that the company tried to inflate its profits by
representing different Blackwater divisions as wholly separate companies.

Surely the government will provide some oversight and get things straightened out, right? Ummm.....not so much.

The WPPS contract awarded in 2004 was divided among a handful of companies,
among them DynCorp and Triple Canopy. Blackwater was originally slated to be
paid $229.5 million for five years, according to a State Department contract
list. Yet as of June 30, just two years into the program, it had been paid a
total of $321,715,794. When confronted with this apparent $100 million
discrepancy, the State Department could not readily explain it. Blackwater's two
years of WPPS earnings exceed many estimates of the company's total government
contracts, which the Virginian-Pilot recently put at $290 million combined since
2000. Six years ago the government paid Blackwater less than $250,000.

Read the article. You'll feel disgusted and ashamed of your government and people like Blackwater Security and "All Children Matter"

Ethics

I recently filled out a survey on ethics that the League of Women Voters, Common Cause, and Wisconsin Democracy Campaign teamed up to present. You should be seeing it in the local papers this week and hearing about it on the radio stations locally as well.

Not surprisingly, Gabe Loeffelholz didn't take the time to address the issue. You'd think being a member of the Jensen 20 would be an incentive for him to want to address the issue of campaign corruption. http://www.wisdc.org/blog/2006/08/ethics-and-jensen-20.html

This gives you a synopsis of the Jensen trial and those whose campaigns were involved in the dirty deeds. Mr. Loeffelholz makes the list. http://homepage.mac.com/oscura/ctd/docs/032206aphahnjemsen.pdf




That's what happens when you blindly follow party leadership. You get lead astray. Whether it is in matters of ethics, policy, or information, the people in the districts pay the price when elected officials choose to put the blinders on and loyally bow to the whims of party leadership rather than thinking and speaking for their constituents.

I think we've had enough of that, don't you?

You Get What You Vote For

Unfortunately, this is about the only answer I have for people when we talk about the price of gas and the crude oil prices. That's what happens when you vote oil barrons into office. A recent study found that 90% of oil lobbyist money goes to the republican party. Dick Cheney has secret meetings with oil company officials to develop our nations energy policy, while keeping the details under court ordered secrecy. A Supreme Court, mind you, that is a 7-2 republican appointed bench. When it came to appointing the newest justices, Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts, all anyone fixated on was their stance on Roe vs. Wade, the abortion ruling. That's what happens when you fixate on one issue. Nobody seemed worried about their views on corporate powers. Nobody asked about their views that enlarge executive power, giving the President and Vice-President more power than at any time since the Nixon Administration. Nobody, except Russ Feingold, and to a lessor extent Pat Leahy of Vermont, questioned their views on our civil liberties. But I digress.

Back on the topic of oil, I find it simply astounding that BP, the company that just shut down the Alaska pipeline because of a leak, didn't see this coming. 8% of our daily oil supply has been interupted while they work to fix the leak. But they certainly aren't going to be hurting in the pocket book. They shut down the wells. So the oil stays in the ground. Crude oil traders are going to use this as a chance to inflict some irrational emotion into the crude market. So the oil that is in the ground today would sell at $76 a barrel. But if they hold it in the ground and watch the emotion of the market take affect, they could extract that oil at a later time when oil hits $80. They are out nothing.

Politics also plays a role. Big Oil is focusing a huge chunk of change on lobbyists to get ANWAR opened up for drilling. That is the controversial Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve oil drilling boondoggle that Republicans keep pushing for. It fails to attract the needed votes for passage time and time again. And for a good reason. The amount of oil is insignificant to our needs. Any oil extracted would be designated for export to Asia. It would NOT be piped down the the lower 48 states. It would do nothing to ease our dependence on foreign oil. But BP et, al keep pushing for it. Make no mistake about it. The ANWAR debate will come up again as a potential solution to the cracked pipeline problem. But at the end of the day, that dog won't hunt.


Do you think it's time for more renewable fuels standards?

Remember, you get what you vote for!

Playing Chess When The Game Is Checkers

I ran across this article at work this morning.

Got Weeds? USDA's ARS Can Help
Thanks to scientists at USDA's Ag Research Service - weeds won't stand a chance against farmers and ranchers. New technology will help farmers locate and eliminate weed patches. Two methods have been developed to help farmers with site-specific weed management at the ARS Water Management Research Unit at Fort Collins, Colorado - by helping them select the management strategy that's best for targeting weed patches in their fields. A software program - WeedSite - helps farmers predict the results of weed management methods. The WeedSite program uses weed maps of producer fields to calculate the effects of various site-specific weed management practices - providing them with the information they need to make a good decision.

So now we have to have computer software to help us find weeds? Well, in the interest of cutting government spending, I've got a better solution to the problem of finding weeds.

Get Dad mad!

He'll find some weeds for you. Bull Thistles. Canadian Thistles. Ragweed. Giant Ragweed. Cockleburr. Burrdocks. It depends how mad you get him. I'm not one of those guys that will tell you how to do things without having done them myself. So I know this method will work better than any old computer software. Why buy a modem, when a spade will work? Why buy a monitor when a weed chopper will work? Best of all; when they break, you don't need to call a technician. Just grab the welder. When I was a kid we used to have to head to the pasture and wage war against Canada Thistles whenever we got on Dad's bad side. Dad would hand us the "thistle chopper" that he'd picked up at Gasser's True Value for Mom for Mother's Day and order us to combat. It was one of those weed whacker's that had a wooden handle and the metal part at the bottom was a flat piece of metal with serrated edges, about 6 inches long. Kinda like a hockey stick, or a putter with a long, flat blade. Well, we'd whack away, practicing our golf swings, until we confronted a Bull Thistle with a stem as thick as an oak. Undeterred, we'd strike a mighty blow..........and break the blade off!!! With a satisfied smile on our face, we'd head to the barn with pieces in hand, knowing that our thistle cutting was done for the day. Unfortunately, Dad was a step ahead and would give the pieces to my oldest brother, Brian.

Brian was pretty handy with a welder. (I don't think it was by choice. He just figured it was easier to work with fixed equipment. Dad and Grandpa would break it as fast as Brian could fix it, it seemed) Well, he'd take the thistle chopper to the welder, and grab himself a spare section from an old haybine sickle. It was a triangle piece about the size of the palm of your hand with serrated edges. He'd weld that at the base of the blade, not only fixing the chopper, but reinforcing it! Then he'd come into the house where I was no doubt enjoying a popsicle and watching tv, and send me back out. (I sometimes wonder whose side he was on. I think Dad was slipping him a little something under the table)

The moral of the story? Rather than waste government spending on computer software to find weeds, I pledge to cut government spending. If you have weed troubles but don't know where they are, I'll give you the old man's phone number. You call him up, insult him, and he'll head to Gasser's and get you a weed whacker and find your weeds for you. You can handle it from there. I may have to talk to Brian about offering welding services. You better bring your own welder, just in case.

More On Healthcare

State Senator Judy Robson, a registered nurse from Beloit, offers some insight on the current dismal state of healthcare in this country.

http://wisopinion.com/index.iml?mdl=article.mdl&article=4841

Of interest:

We spend too much money on paperwork and red tape.The billing bureaucracy –
in hospitals, clinics, and insurance companies – takes up far too much of every
dollar spent on health care. We waste too much money on a bureaucracy that
contests whether every pill, every exam, every day in the hospital is justified.
The bureaucracy of our health care system costs $400 million a year. That’s 31
percent of every health care dollar spent in America, compared to 17 percent in
Canada.

And thanks to the Medicare prescription drug bill that the republican congress let the drug companies write:

And it’s getting worse. The new Medicare prescription drug benefit increases
our wasteful spending in two ways. First, the federal government is paying
top-dollar for prescription drugs instead of using its enormous purchasing power
to negotiate lower prices.Second, instead of a simple, efficient model like
Wisconsin’s SeniorCare, the federal government is funneling large amounts of tax
dollars through private insurance plans with high overhead.

We need reform and we need it now. The state legislature had their chances and blew it. It's time for a change!

It's The 4-H Kids Fault

If you follow the news on a regular basis, you've no doubt heard of the controversy involving the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a part-time instructor who believes the 9-11 attacks were an inside job.

Kevin Barrett is a part-time instructor at UW who teaches a course in Islamic studies. Outside of the classroom, he has spoken out about his views on 9-11. The nutshell version is that he believes that the U.S. Government orchestrated it. For the record, I DO NOT share his view. I believe plenty of mistakes were made by our government, but I find Barrett's views go plenty overboard.

I can understand people finding his views outrageous. But I have somewhat of a problem when they want to punish a citizen for his personal views. He doesn't teach them in his classroom. But even if he did, college students have more than enough intelligence to think for themselves. After all, that's what college is supposed to be for, right? College exists to expose students to as many opinions and as much information as possible and allow them to form their own thoughts. The role of college is not to program their thoughts. So to me, this whole deal is much ado about not a heck of a lot.

But getting back to people wanting to punish Barrett for his opinions. I'm not real comfortable with that. But it is downright disgusting that farmers and 4-H kids have to pay the price because somebody wants to exact some revenge. You read that last sentence correctly. Farmers and 4-H kids.

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=479531

The Ozaukee County Board has voted to cut funding to the Ozaukee County UW-Extension program in the amount of Barrett's salary as punishment to UW because they didn't punish him by firing him. I'm not making this up.

Ozaukee County Supervisor Joseph Sopko said he plans to contact all 71 other
county boards to urge them to adopt the same resolution.

I think I'm gonna hang out at the Grant County Administration building in hopes that I can be the one who answers the phone when this clown calls.

Sopko co-authored the resolution with Supervisor Joe Dean, of Port
Washington, who was not present at Wednesday's board meeting. The resolution to
cut next year's UW Extension program by $8,427 - the same amount Barrett will be
paid this fall - passed 18-11.

It's for the voters in Ozaukee County to deside, but I'm hoping there will be 18 new board members when the next election is held.

"

We believe a message must be sent to the UW-System and UW-Madison that their
actions represent a gross dereliction of their duty, a blatant disrespect for
this nation, and a misguided and dangerous acquiescence to a fringe 'Blame
America First' theory," the resolution reads.

Last time I checked, 4-H kids and farmers weren't running around "Blaming America First". They've got more important things to worry about.

"The only people who will be harmed by this kind of cut in Ozaukee
County or any other county will be our local 4-H kids, local farmers, local
families, local businesses, local communities," said David Giroux, a spokesman
for UW Extension in Madison.

Giroux questioned the logic of penalizing UW Extension because of a
hiring decision at UW-Madison.

"Kevin Barrett has absolutely no affiliation with University of
Wisconsin Extension. I understand (Sopko's) reaction. It's easy to understand
those feelings. It's harder for us to understand how this is being done to
direct that frustration at those local extension programs when in fact the
person you're frustrated with has no connection to those programs," Giroux
said.
The UW Extension is a separate institution of the UW System.

That's a good point by Mr. Giroux, but right-wing wingnuts have never let truth and logic get in the way of their arguments. In this case, 18 of them didn't.

Several Ozaukee supervisors questioned whether the County Board should even
entertain the resolution.
"It is not appropriate. This resolution does not
pertain to our mission whatsoever," Supervisor Jean Stern of Mequon said.
"It
is germane," Supervisor Dan Becker countered. "We're a voice to look out for our
constituents. It's a way to send a message. I'll be damned if I'm going to let
tax dollars be spent on spewing lies."
At one point, Sopko's voice rose to a
shout as he described his flight home from Afghanistan aboard a plane carrying
coffins of military personnel killed there, as well as some who were
wounded.
"Talk is cheap. This is an opportunity to hit them where it hurts. You're either with Joe Dean and I or you're against us," he
shouted.

If being "with" Mr. Sopko and Mr. Dean means being against farmers and 4-Hers, that makes for a pretty easy decision for me.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out, boys.

Role Of Government

So often in campaigns we hear candidates talking about the size of government and whether big is better or smaller is better. In my opinion, they miss the point. It's not the size of government that matters so much. It's the effectiveness and efficiency that matters. Government can be too big, and it can be too small. Big government can be effective or ineffective; efficient or inefficient. Small government can be effective or ineffective; efficient or inefficient. But at the end of the day, society needs government. Good government. Responsible government. We need roads, schools, police, firefighters, etc. Electing people who understand this and act in accordance is vital to society. So it doesn't make sense to elect people who hate government. People who hate their jobs don't do a good job. They treat it with apathy. That makes for an inefficient and ineffective government, regardless of its size.

I ran across an article that talks about this and asks some simple questions.

http://haloscan.com/tb/folkbum/115453798702817375

When you have your car repaired, do you take it to a mechanic who hates
working on cars?

When you go to the Doctor, do you choose one who hates treating
people?

Would you hire a babysitter who hated kids?

Why then do you continue to vote for those who hate government?

To continue to vote these guys into office and expect efficient good
government is to expect the impossible. It is long past time to hire people who
can and want to do a good job.

Saving The Farmland

Seeing farmland being gobbled up for development is an issue that more and more people in rural Wisconsin are getting concerned about each day. Especially when it comes to young and beginning farmers trying to find land to buy for farming. It's because of these concerns that Rod Nilsestuen, Secretary of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection appointed a panel to look into the problem and try to find some workable solutions.

Margaret Krome is a member of the state board of DATCP and also contributes to the Capitol Times newspaper. http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/column/index.php?ntid=93253&ntpid=0

Of interest:

Not only in southern Wisconsin, but across the state, farmland is being
converted to housing and commercial uses at alarming rates. From 1950 through
the 1990s, Wisconsin lost 24 percent of its farmland, leaving the rest
fragmented and expensive. Forest land also is becoming more fragmented as large
owners sell lots for housing and recreational uses.

Even in 40 years time, 24 percent is a sizable chunk of land. But the question I always ask is, Can you blame a farmer for selling? Krome asks that as well.

So shall we hate farmers for selling out? Farmers whose livelihoods are
vulnerable to extremes of climate and market changes? Farmers whose profession
is one of the nation's most dangerous and who, as small-business owners, must
pay their own health insurance? Farmers who worked hard for years, likely never
made large incomes from farming and count on the added value from the
development potential of their land to secure their retirement?

No? Well, then, let's blame developers, right? They're the ones who
convert the land and make a pretty penny as they do it, right? Alas, it's not so
rational to hate developers either. After all, few developers are so foolish as
to purchase land without a clear market for their housing or commercial
developments. Simply put, housing demand is growing, as our population grows and
people seek second homes.

The report is due out sometime this week, and among the ideas generated:

• Supporting initiatives that advance marketing and agriculturally based
economic development, to help keep farming profitable.
• Updating the
Farmland Preservation Program to improve agricultural planning and zoning,
increase tax credits, and improve the flexibility of local governments to
administer the program.
• Creating a new Working Lands Enterprise Areas
program to foster clustering of active farms and slow farmland conversion.
•
Creating a new purchase of development rights grant program to permanently
preserve selected properties.
• Promoting opportunities to increase land use
density, to use land more efficiently and reduce demand for conversion of
working lands.
• Creating beginning farmer and logger programs.
• Helping
local governments implement working lands programs and educating the public
about them.

Obviously, as Krome notes, these things need to be paid for if implemented. But before we cross that bridge, we'll need to take an in-depth look at the panel's ideas. Some may be feasible, some may not.

As the old song goes, further along we'll know more about it.

Listen To What They Don't Say

As the old saying goes, "the devil is in the details." But what if there are no details?


Congressmen Mark Green, the republican candidate for Governor, has released his "plan" for a state budget should he win election. The problem is, there are very few details. It's one of those "trust me. I have a plan. You don't need to know it, just trust me." type of deals. Sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it? It's very much in line with the Bush Administration's philosophy. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it?

Check out this link to a blog that subsequently links to other blogs with breakdowns of what can't be broken down because there are no details. Confused?

Check this out from Xoff: http://www.wisopinion.com/blogs/2006/07/greens-budget-plan-is-no-plan-at-all.html


One more thing. As for the title of this entry, notice that in all of Mark Green's comments, he never brings up TABOR, or TPA. He is a very big supporter of TABOR. So when he talks of cutting spending, his idea isn't to do it with fiscal discipline in Madison. No sir! His idea is to cripple local governments and force the burden on property owners with a TABOR or TPA. Gabe Loeffelholz cast the deciding vote on TPA in the last Assembly session. Think he won't do it again?