Thursday, March 31, 2011
Pat Lucey resigns as Co-Chair of Justice Prosser's Re-Election Campaign and endorses Joanne Kloppenburg
National Tea Party Rally in DC Today - Don't Blink. You Might Have Missed It.
Rep. Michelle Bachman (R) Minnesota
The Tea Party Patriots Movement held its Continuing Revolution Rally on the east side of the Capitol building in Washington, DC today at noon. Here is the report from the Christian Science Monitor:
Money Quotes with my comments interspersed:
It was a chilly, drizzly day in the middle of the week, but tea party activists still turned out a couple of hundred supporters Thursday at a rally near the Capitol.
Hey, Tea Party Patriots, check out the picture below from Wisconsin's Capitol on February 26th, Snowstorm and 17 degrees, 65,000 protestors. The Weather Channel had it at 42 degrees and mostly cloudy in Washington today just before the Tea Party rally began.
The Tea Party Caucus organizer – and possible presidential candidate – Rep. Michele Bachmann (R) of Minnesota showed off her crowd-rallying skill in a rousing pep talk.
She is such a big draw as well because of her crowd-rallying skills.
“It’s so wonderful to see that all of you are still fighting,” Congresswoman Bachmann said. “There are people here in Washington, D.C., who thought after the November election that you were all going to go home and go back to sleep. Is that true?”
“No!” the crowd shouted back.
"No" thundered the crowd of 200, which according to Politco, included speakers, news people, and probably some passersbys. One reporter said Mike Pence, a Republican congressman from Indiana, who's a Tea Party favorite, admitted to a reporter that news crews made up about half the crowd estimated at 200. Just check out the picture above.
On the nascent 2012 presidential race, tea partyers interviewed at Thursday’s rally were all over the map. One attendee from Washington, D.C., who declined to give his name, said he was initially excited about former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R), but was now interested in billionaire Donald Trump, because of his focus on President Obama’s birth certificate.
Now there is a really strong new issue issue to run on, Obama's birth certificate. Trump is like a plant for the Dems. Kind of seems like Alvin Greene in the U.S. Senate race in South Carolina in November. Trump makes the GOP look goofy everytime he opens his mouth. Even Bill O'Reilly found himself throwing up in his mouth interviewing the guy recently. But Trump is what passes for a Republican candidate in the Tea Party era.
The Capitol Square has been very quiet for the last several weeks. With Judge Sumi declaring that Act 10 has not been properly published, and is not in force, perhaps it is time for another Tea Party Rally on the Capitol Square to support the Walker administration. Come on Tea Party, show us your numbers! But don't use any painter's tape.
Brief Hiatus (Maybe not brief enough?)
Hope both of you notice.
Back on Sunday.
KG
Classiest Politicians in America - Installment 3 - Scott Fitzgerald
Senator Scott Fitzgerald, (R) Juneau
Senate Majority Leader
Senator Scott Fitzgerald's Statement today on the revised TRO issued by Judge Sumi this morning:
“Once again, one Dane County judge is doing everything she can to stand in the way of our efforts to improve the economy and create jobs. The fact that the prosecution didn’t even request an amended TRO makes it clear: this is judicial activism at its worst.
“There are 17 branches of the Dane County Circuit Court. To say that any one of them has more authority to make laws in Wisconsin than the elected Legislature is ridiculous.”It's amazing that a politician can be so inane in just two very short paragraphs of two sentences each. It's almost difficult to know where to start in addressing how bone-headed the statement is. It's as if some reject from Rush Limbaugh's radio staff had been hired to come up from Florida and author these statements for Sen. Fitzgerald unaware that the vast majority of Wisconsinites can still reach up and find that the backs of their heads are there.
Let's start with the last paragraph first. It is cleverly worded (In all likelihood by dumb luck, like the proverbial 1,000,000 monkeys sitting at keyboards and eventually replicating Hamlet.) In one sense Senator Fitzgerald can be seen as saying none of those 17 liberal Dane County Judges has the power that is being exerted here. There is presumably a wide spectrum of political beliefs on the Dane County bench and, under this reading, once again Sen. Fitzgerald has deliberately chosen to try to paint the Dane County Circuit Court with the liberal bias brush. Lawyers seldom have a reliable picture of what they are going to get in terms of philosophical bents in their cases in Dane County, so I doubt very much that Scott Fitzgerald has the solid scoop on Dane County judges.
Judge are temperate, not intemperate. They work hard at being non-partisan. Thus, it's hard to imagine any Dane County judge, or judge in any other county, saying something publicly on the order of: "Gee, if the Republicans hadn't had their heads firmly up their keisters when they rushed things through the conference committee on March 9, 2011, poor Judge Sumi wouldn't be having to put up with all the abuse she is taking." But I wouldn't put it past them to be thinking it, regardless of political leaning, since it is such a rational thought to have.
In another sense, the last paragraph can be viewed as singling Judge Sumi out as the one judge of 17, or in a small subset of 17, who would be prone due to liberal bias to act unlawfully. I posted earlier about the public attacks on Judge Sumi, both dopey and comical. I won't go back over that ground. What I will say is that Judge Sumi took substantially the same oath of office that Scott Fitzgerald took, to act in defense of the state's constitution. If it is determined ultimately in the lawsuit that the Open Meetings Law is grounded in the Wisconsin Constitution, as I believe will surely happen, then we will ultimately know whether Judge Sumi or Senator Fitzgerald has done a better job living up to the oath of office. We already know which person is showing more respect for a co-equal branch of govenrment.
Now to paragraph one. Judge Sumi has repeatedly made clear that she is not addressing whether Act 10 is a good law, a bad law, or a middling law. That's clearly not her job. I doubt that Senator Fitzgerald is right when he says that Judge Sumi wants to see the economy remain in the doldrums. Frankly, the possibility of cuts to funding for the staffing of the judicial branch, of DA's and public defenders, should have all sane judges saying prayers for a rapid improvement in the state's economy. Judge Sumi is a sane judge.
Senator Fitzgerald claims the TRO wasn't even requested. I don't know as I sit here whether DA Ozanne asked for the modification of the TRO, or whether Judge Sumi acted after seeing all the press releases from GOP sources indicating that no one wearing red ties intended to pay any heed to her March 28th order. I will accept the premise that she acted sua sponte, after hearing her order was in the process of being ignored. If you don't know the meaning of sua sponte, it means the court takes an action on its own authority, rather than at the request of a party to the lawsuit. That's the formal Black's Law Dictionary definition. In the context of this case, sua sponte is more aptly defined as: "If you folks in charge of state government are going to keep acting like a law unto yourselves, I am going to at least make it crystal clear to the citizens of this state what you are doing." Judge Sumi did not have to have anyone ask her to modify her order. She had the inherent authority, and frankly duty, to act in order to protect the authority of and respect for the judicial system.
The GOP has screwed up the effort to put the budget repair bill in place from start (springing it on the public after not campaigning on it) to middle (banging the gavel down on poor Peter Barca at the improperly noticed conference committee meeting) to finish (directing the LRB to publish Act 10, thinking there was some loophole in Judge Sumi's original TRO to exploit). Scott Fitzgerald is continuing to try to take the focus off his own inadequacies as a majority leader by attacking Judge Sumi. Through his new attacks, here is what he want Wisconsinites to forget:
Green Bay Press Gazette endorsed Joanne Kloppenburg Today.
Green Bay Press Gazette endorsed Joanne Kloppenburg today.
Money Quotes:
During her campaign, Kloppenburg has made every effort — sometimes, almost to a fault — to articulate and emphasize her independence, a quality we agree is critical for justices to rule fairly. During an interview with the Green Bay Press-Gazette editorial board, the assistant attorney general expressed a reluctance to discuss certain cases that have come before the high court — or that might — ostensibly for fear of betraying any inkling of preconceived bias. And while we understand and appreciate this emphasis on independence, Kloppenburg's reticence puts her in danger of coming across as uninformed. We do not believe this is the case.
Further, Kloppenburg strikes us as the more levelheaded candidate, and frankly we have been troubled by some of Prosser's statements throughout the campaign. During a meeting with the Press-Gazette editorial board, Prosser said repeatedly the Impartial Justice Act, which provides public funding for state Supreme Court candidates, was designed to oust him from office. At one point, he went so far as to call it "a law designed to get Dave Prosser," and said he had "a target on my back." His insistence that this is the case is unsettling.
During a tense March 21 debate at Marquette University, Prosser made an unnecessarily awkward statement about a posting on Kloppenburg's Facebook page, inquiring whether he was the "turd" to which a poster referred. Any legitimate point Prosser, a former Republican lawmaker, may have had about the nature of the campaign was lost in this odd exchange, which we also find troubling. Taken together, statements such as these indicate Kloppenburg is the more levelheaded of the two candidates. This, combined with her experience and insistence on independence, make Kloppenburg this newspaper's preferred candidate for the state's high court.
The Judicial Hammer Falls On The Walker Administration: Judge Sumi revises her TRO from Monday
Everyone and their sister on the right side of the political spectrum pointed out that the judge had crossed out the last paragraph of the order presented her by the Dane County DA when she signed it on March 28.
Then the Walker Adminstration thumbed the judge's eye by saying it intended to go forward implementing Act 10.
Here is what Judge Sumi ordered today.
Act 10 is not currently the law of Wisconsin because it has not been published as required under the law.
Judge Sumi's order is not a final order. It is possible that she could finish the hearing in the lawsuit, decide that the Open Meetings Law was not violated in the conference committee meeting, or that the violation didn't warrant declaring Act 10 invalid, and then decide that the law can go into effect after it is properly published by the Secretary of State. Moreover, there may be other actions she takes with respect to the alleged Open Meetings Law violation, such as forfeitures, after she finishes the hearing. But she seems clearly to have decided with finality that the law was not properly published so as to be an effective law right now.
The saga continues, and this order may spur the Supreme Court to accept the certification of the interlocutory appeal from the Court of Appeals.
Capitol Building Repairs - The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight - Part 2
The basis for Ms. Renlund's testimony? A one page hand-written note by Dan Stephens, a state architect, dated the same day as her testimony. I didn't hear or read details about her testimony, but let me imagine the pre-courtroom preparation: "What if the protestors' attorneys ask me if I have seen any written estimates backing up that number?" "Here, let me write some numbers down, but don't take this into the courtroom."
At least the estimate wasn't on a bar napkin.
The $7,500,000 estimate went viral, and caused the right-wing press and blogosphere to rant about the destructive protestors in Madison. The Lieutenant Governor posted the figure on her Facebook page that generated considerable outrage. It served the Adminstration's political purpose, and the Adminstration quickly backed off the number the next day. DOA Secretary Mike Huebsch wrote a letter on March 9 telling Judge Albert the number was the best he could do under the circumstances when he testified on March 3.
Politifacts has rated the $7,500,000 claim in the "Pants on Fire" Liar category. To the best of my knowledge, that is the worst rating on the Politifacts' scale of political mendacity .
Presumably, Dan Stephens and anyone he wanted to bring in as an expert in stone restoration could have walked through the Capitol building the night before Ms. Renlund's testimony. The Adminstration could then have come up with an honest estimate based on the physical facts existing at the building.
Doing the math on Governor Walker's 250,000 new jobs promise
Earlier I had discussed how to measure the Governor's promise to the people of Wisconsin to create 250,000 new jobs on his first four year watch. There are labor economists who could better weigh in on the feasibility of the governor's promise, but it seems clear that unless the governor is going to significantly increase the work force in Wisconsin over the next four years, he has created a pretty tall order for himself.
Wisconsin's job numbers in September 2008, just before the Great Recession hit in October were:
Work Force - 3,086,400
Employed - 2,951,600
Unemployed - 134,800
Unemployment rate - 4.4%
The job numbers for January, 2011, when the new Walker Adminstration came to power in Wisconsin were:
Work Force - 3,045,300
Employed - 2,819,300
Unemployed - 226,000
Unemployment rate - 7.4%
The largest level of the Wisconsin work force I could find in DWD reports during the last five years was about 3,133,000 in June, 2008. If the current level of work force, 3,045,300 in January, expands to the level it was at in June 2008, the governor will need to have the unemployment rate in Wisconsin drop to less than 1% to meet his promise. If he could pull that off, then he would deserve to be a national golden boy for the GOP.
But let's be more optimistic and assume that the governor's policies do encourage substantial growth in the work force, by encouraging those Illinois companies to relocate to Wisconsin. If the 4.4% unemployment rate from September 2008 is a respectable rate of unemployment (much
The job number to watch change over time, to see if the governor is pulling his promise off, will be the work force number. If it is rising steadily over time, he may get to his goal.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Michelle Rhee, the Education Guru for the Far Right is Under a Cloud of Suspicion
Michelle Rhee and Florida Governor Rick Scott, for whom she is an education advisor
Michelle Rhee is the former superintendent of the D.C. School District. Chris Christie, New Jersey's Republican governor is pushing her to become the head of the New Jersey public school systems. Ms. Rhee is the new darling of the privitization of schools movement, and a national critic of teachers unions for impeding school improvement. She is also now under suspicion of having done far less for improvement of the D.C. schools than she has claimed.
USA Today just reported that a number of the schools in the D.C. school district have very questionable academic achievement tests results, with schools showing inordinate amounts of erasures on test forms that transferred answers for erroneous ones to correct ones:. The report focused on the results at one school that Ms. Rhee particularly touted as a success story:
Standardized test scores improved dramatically. In 2006, only 10% of Noyes' students scored "proficient" or "advanced" in math on the standardized tests required by the federal No Child Left Behind law. Two years later, 58% achieved that level. The school showed similar gains in reading.
Because of the remarkable turnaround, the U.S. Department of Education named the school in northeast Washington a National Blue Ribbon School. Noyes was one of 264 public schools nationwide given that award in 2009.
Michelle Rhee, then chancellor of D.C. schools, took a special interest in Noyes. She touted the school, which now serves preschoolers through eighth-graders, as an example of how the sweeping changes she championed could transform even the lowest-performing Washington schools. Twice in three years, she rewarded Noyes' staff for boosting scores: In 2008 and again in 2010, each teacher won an $8,000 bonus, and the principal won $10,000.
Noyes is one of 103 public schools here that have had erasure rates that surpassed D.C. averages at least once since 2008. That's more than half of D.C. schools. Erasures are detected by the same electronic scanners that CTB/McGraw-Hill, D.C.'s testing company, uses to score the tests. When test-takers change answers, they erase penciled-in bubble marks that leave behind a smudge; the machines tally the erasures as well as the new answers for each student. In 2007-08, six classrooms out of the eight taking tests at Noyes were flagged by McGraw-Hill because of high wrong-to-right erasure rates. The pattern was repeated in the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years, when 80% of Noyes classrooms were flagged by McGraw-Hill.
Although all of the experts consulted by USA TODAY said such aberrations should trigger investigations at the school level, that did not happen in D.C. in 2008. No schools were investigated.
In November 2008, Deborah Gist, then the state superintendent of education, recommended that D.C. public schools and several charter schools investigate why their erasure rates were so high. "It is important to note that these (data) analyses do not suggest reasons for the high erasure rates," Gist wrote to the schools. "However, it is important that all procedures available to us are employed to guarantee the validity of the state assessment system."
Seven charter schools responded to OSSE and carried out probes. Gist's proposal met resistance from Rhee's staff, documents obtained by USA TODAY show. Memoranda flew back and forth for five months as D.C. school officials questioned the methodology and the rationale for an investigation.
Union officials say the pressure for high test scores may have tempted educators to cheat.
"This is like an education Ponzi scam," says Nathan Saunders, head of the Washington Teachers' Union. "If your test scores improve, you make more money. If not, you get fired. That's incredibly dangerous."
A former Noyes parent, Marvin Tucker, says he suspected something was wrong in 2003, when the test scores his daughter, Marlana, brought home from school showed she was proficient in math.
Tucker says he was skeptical because the third-grader was getting daily instruction from a private tutor yet struggled with addition and subtraction. "She was nowhere near where they said she was on the test," he says. "I thought something was wrong with the test."
He questioned Ryan, the principal, and teachers about his daughter's scores but no one could explain how she had scored so high, Tucker recalls. Ultimately, Ryan barred him from the school for a year, saying he had threatened staff members, Tucker says. Tucker denies that.
Tucker also points out that if his daughter was proficient as a third-grader, that didn't last. When Marlana moved on to middle school elsewhere in D.C., her test scores fell and she no longer was considered proficient in math, he says.Dana Goldstein, writing for The Daily Beast, discusses the revelations regarding the D.C. schools in relation to Campbell's Law, which speaks to the corrupting influence of incentives and punishments in the area of school testing:
In the social sciences, there is an oft-repeated maxim called Campbell’s Law, named after Donald Campbell, a psychologist who studied human creativity. Campbell’s Law states that incentives corrupt. In other words, the more punishments and rewards—such as merit pay—are associated with the results of any given test, the more likely it is that the test’s results will be rendered meaningless, either through outright cheating or through teaching to the test in a way that narrows the curriculum and renders real learning obsolete.
In the era of No Child Left Behind, Campbell’s Law has proved true again and again. When the federal government began threatening to restructure or shut-down schools that did not achieve across-the-board student “proficiency” on state reading and math exams, states responded by creating standardized tests that were easier and easier to pass. Alabama, for example, reported that 85 percent of its fourth-graders were proficient in reading in 2005, even though only 22 percent of the state’s students demonstrated proficiency on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the gold standard, no-stakes exam administered by the federal government.
Michelle Rhee came to her job as head of the D.C school district with 3 years teaching experience with Teach for America and no prior principal or superintendent experience. She had run a non-profit group, The New Teacher Project, which recruited and trained teachers for underachieving school districts.Simultaneously, instances of outright cheating were rising nationwide. The USA Today investigation on the probable cheating in Washington, D.C. is just one article in a must-read series based on student achievement data culled from 24,000 public schools across the country. The paper found 1,610 instances in which test score gains from year to year exceeded three standard deviations—a jump greater than that of 99.7 percent of all test-takers annually in any given state, the threshold at which statisticians agree that test results may be suspect.
One of the concerns I have with the Governor's plans for education, apart from the massive cuts, is over who is advising him. The people of Wisconsin hear him claiming that he is going to be providing tools for placing the focus back on quality instruction, but he really hasn't shared the plans with the public. I wonder if the governor has some competent studies that will satisfy the public that the changes he wants will be successful in ways that aren't illusory.
The AG's right to control Doug La Follette's Defense.
I posted yesterday my thoughts about whether Attorney General JB Van Hollen had breached the lawyer ethics rules in his representation of Douglas La Follette. A local lawyer friend has now informed me of a Court of Appeal's decision, Lake Beulah Management Dist. vs. State Department of Natural Resources, 327 Wis 2d. 222, 787 N.W. 2d 926 (Wis. App 2010). My friend had read my critique of the position of Deputy Attorney General St. John in a letter turning down the requested representation of Peter Barca in the Ozanne lawsuit. Mr. St. John took the following position in his letter:
Last, we wish to make clear that this conflict is not because legislative defendants are of a different party or because Mr. Barca or Mr. Miller may wish to proceed on a separate legal theory. They would not have the right to do so. As I am sure you are aware, the Attorney General's representation of state officials in this capacity is not like a typical attorney-client relationship. The Attorney General has the authority to control such litigation, including the right to compromise or settle matters, as he determines to be in the best interest of the state, not individual defendants. (Emphasis added.)Wis. Stats., sec. 165.25(6) reads:
At the request of the head of any department of state government, the attorney general may appear for and defend any state department, or any state officer, employee, or agent of the department in any civil action or other matter brought before a court or an administrative agency which is brought against the state department, or officer, employee, or agent for or on account of any act growing out of or committed in the lawful course of an officer's, employee's, or agent's duties. Witness fees or other expenses determined by the attorney general to be reasonable and necessary to the defense in the action or proceeding shall be paid as provided for in s. 885.07. The attorney general may compromise and settle the action as the attorney general determines to be in the best interest of the state.What I view as an overly expansive reading of 165.25(6), expressed in the portion of Mr. St. John's letter quoted above, doesn't square with the position the AG took in the Lake Beulah case.
In the Lake Beulah case, the issue was whether the DNR had followed its statutory authority and adminstrative rules in granting permits to the Village of East Troy for certain high capacity water wells that the Lake Beulah Management District felt would adversely impact the levels of the lake. The Attorney General was of the view that the conduct of the DNR with respect to issuing the permits could not be defended under the statute. Thus the Attorney General chose not to provide representation to the DNR in defending the action brought by the Lake Beulah Management District against the department. The Court of Appeals noted in a footnote, the unusual situation where the Attorney General was not appearing in court in defense of a state department.
As a practical matter, the situation whereby the DNR's own attorney represents the agency in a case such as this is unique. Normally, the Department of Justice has the duty to represent the DNR pursuant to Wis. Stat. § 165.25. However, the DOJ refused to represent the DNR in the instant case because it disagreed with the DNR's grant of both the 2003 and 2005 permits. Thus, the agency's own attorney was the attorney of record for the DNR.As my friend pointed out to me, if the Attorney General's reading of sec. 165.25(6) as stated in the letter of Mr. St. John turning down Rep. Barca's representation is really the AG's interpretation of that statute, there would have been no reason for the Attorney General to bow out of the Lake Beulah case because his view of the defense differed from the DNR's view. According to Mr. St. John, the view of the department or officer being defended by the AG doesn't matter to the AG, since it always has the last word on what defense posture is in the best interest of the state.
Here's the analysis from my friend's email, which may make the argument clearer, as he is smarter:
I continue to question whether the AG violated the ethics rules in disregarding Doug La Follette's desires as to how his defense should be handled, and by failing to properly consult with Mr. La Follette.I don’t believe even JB Van Hollen would take the position that the AG has the power, over the objection of the client officer or agency, to make policy decisions on behalf of the agency. Interestingly, in Lake Beulah Management Dist. v. DNR, 327 Wis.2d 222, 787 N.W.2d 926 (Ct. App.,2010), the AG refused to represent the DNR because, the Court of Appeals noted, he disagreed with the substantive position of the DNR. If he has the power under 165.25 to control the client’s goals in litigation, why would he not have agreed to represent the DNR and then stipulate that the challenged permits issued by the DNR were improper? All he would have had to say is that is in the best interest of the state.
I think Van Hollen did the right thing and declined the representation because of the conflict between his own personal views and the legal position of his client [the DNR]. Seems like the same decision should have been made here [in the Ozanne vs. La Follette matter].
The Secretary of State is a constitutional officer. Even if the Legislature intended by 165.25 to allow his policy judgment to be overruled by the AG, I wonder whether it could constitutionally do that.
Off Sendai on the USS Ronald Reagan
USS Ronald Reagan, CVN-76
One of my Vietnam-era shipmates sent me an email he had received from an officer friend aboard the carrier USS Ronald Reagan, which is off the Northeast coast of Japan near Sendai:
.
All,
Just thought I'd send an update from life today on Reagan. Some of you have seen of this and some haven't. It’s been quite a week. Many challenging times, avoiding radioactive plumes and contamination in the environment both air and water. Sailors here are happy to help in such a trifold disaster but it’s also been pretty scary at times for us too. I think all the rad we've seen is safe low levels but we do hear of high levels now and again.
Since we are a nuclear carrier we have all the requisite devices to measure radiation in the environment and keep the ship safe, however, not sure the chain of command ever considered having to use these devices in a situation quite like this. Literally, our chain of command was the resident experts on things nuclear until task forces started to get set up and organized.
We had a rough time trying to figure out where to go at first but have nestled into an area north of Sendai that saw much damage and is also a safe distance from the reactors at Fukishima.
We found a bunch of people at first, ~ 10-20 landing zones, then the past few days were quieter and today we found Japanese that needed rescued again.
The helos and airplanes go out and look at the country looking for people with cameras and stuff. Japanese are really smart at disaster preparedness. The displaced people that need help write SOS on the ground in big fields or drop lots of stones on the ground in an helo pad shape or spell out S O S . Then the helos know there are people nearby that need help so they land and look and bring back supplies. Lots and lots of Japanese have been helped in this way. I'm guessing they are without power but yet they inherently know to do this.
When the helos land on the ground the Japanese come out and stand in a perfect line and help the helo guys unload all the goodies out of the helo in an assembly line as fast as possible. They have been ever so respectful, patient and humble. They are such an amazing people. Even in this horrible time, they maintain such respectability
My friend who is a helo pilot told me tonight that as they were taking off after unloading supplies, a man got down on his knees and prayed to the helo guys (like a buddhist praying motion). Other Japanese have all waved, clapped, and given many types of thanks to our helo squadrons.
I saw pictures tonight from the helo's and airplanes. The pictures are amazing. I've never been to Japan but it’s so beautiful, the mountain sides are breathtaking and the ocean on the northeast coast is SO BLUE! There is a lot of destruction in the pictures. Towns just wiped out and houses remaining where the water stopped. I also heard the Japanese had a lot of water walls to help protect them from tsunamis and this helped in many locations but not all of course. I haven't had much time to watch the news and all we get is CNN so these pictures today were unique to me.
Today at sea I saw A LOT of trees in the ocean. It looked like a lumber yard, logs and trees everywhere. Many trees have the root systems attached. I swear, I'd bet money that chunks of land lifted up from the seaside with the trees attached because some of the trees stick straight up and down out of the water as if they are solid in ground (but the water depth is 1000-2000' in those spots. The ocean is littered with connex boxes, I've seen soooo much debris out here, I wish we could have blown some of it up so that at least they weren't hazards to navigation.
There is media from the NYTimes here today so maybe there will be more news about us coming.
The guys on the flight deck have been working so hard, it’s really cold outside, they have to wear over boots over their boots to protect from contamination and they return back into the skin of the ship through the foc'sle which is now a decontamination station. I've heard that line lasts an hour to get through. If your clothes or boots are too high then they take them from you and issue you new stuff. Fibers and clothes hold radiation more so then hard surfaces and so I think some things like halyards and lines may have to be thrown away. Our 'lookouts' have been inside the pilothouse almost this entire time now and believe the island structure has some contamination on it. My forecasters stopped launching weather balloons but the smoke pit is still open on the fantail.
My team has been working so hard and sleeping so little and giving everything they've got. The forecasts for the helos are paramount and CAG is definitely concerned for his guys. The captain has told me repeatedly to keep him abreast of the winds and call him anytime when we will be 'downwind' from the reactors. There are people making 'plumes' models of the air and sea, some are good, some are great, and some are not. It’s all very complicated. And the jets, well, they haven't really been flying so who knows what will happen with
When this is all over I intend to travel back here and find a place in the country that is clean and safe to be and enjoy everything this beautiful country has to offer.
Yesterday everyone donated supplies from their personal stashes. I'm hoping we do that again.
All for now, sorry if this email is kind of choppy just wanted to pass along the latest.
Peace,xxxxxxx xxxxxxxLCDRUSS RONALD REAGAN
A Perfect Storm? Early voting in Madison suggests 50% turnout Tuesday
Atlantic Hurricane
I leave town Friday, so today on my lunch hour I went to the City of Madison Clerk's office to vote early. I may never vote at my precinct's polling station again. In and out in two minutes. Just give your name, and the clerk looks you up on her computer and quickly prints an ID stamp to go on the envelope that is used to deliver your ballot to the precinct on election day. Only drawback? No "I voted" stickers. So voting couldn't be easier, and it is a shame the GOP will be trying their best to make it harder in the next few months.
I asked the lady who helped me how the early voting was going. She said that the City Clerk's office had already taken in over 2,000 early ballots, which is more early ballots at this stage of the race than were cast in the February 2008 presidential preference election (principally split between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democrats, and John McCain and Mike Huckabee for the GOP). The Wisconsin GAB reports on that primary show 165,959 votes for both parties' candidates, which was 50% of the 332,221 registered voters in Dane County in 2008. If 50% of the voters in Dane County turn out on Tuesday, and if the vote totals statewide are in the usual range of 800,000 to 830,000 voters for a Spring judicial election, Dane County could be twenty percent of the state-wide vote total.
On the way back from the Clerk's office, ran into a lawyer friend who is far more in the know about state politics than I, and his take was that Justice Prosser was still going to squeeze by on Tuesday. If so, that will still be a pretty remarkable result, given that as an incumbent, running against a virtually unknown Assistant Attorney General, Justice Prosser should have been on a cakewalk.
Craig Gilbert, political reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, discussed in an article yesterday the likelihood that highly contested down-ballot races in Dane County (Soglin vs. Cieslewicz and Parisi vs. Bruskewitz) and Milwaukee County (Stone vs. Abele for County Exec.) will generate much greater than normal Spring turnout in those two counties. Among the more interesting points he made was the relationship between Milwaukee County turnout in Spring Supreme Court elections when the Milwaukee County Executive position is on the ballot:
As a case study in how circumstance and timing can dictate an election, it’s hard to top the April 5 Supreme Court contest in Wisconsin.
In the case of Milwaukee County, history suggests that county executive races have a dramatic impact on the size of the Supreme Court vote. The chart below shows the huge variation in total votes cast from Milwaukee County in recent Supreme Court contests.
The lowest bars coincide with uncontested court races. The two big spikes are 2000 and 2008, when a race for Milwaukee county executive coincided with a state Supreme Court race. The county generated an average of roughly 165,000 votes for state Supreme Court in those two years. In the other contested court races when there was no county executive race (2009, 2007, 2003), Milwaukee County generated an average of 93,000 votes for Supreme Court.
It’s the difference between Milwaukee County accounting for 11 or 12 percent of the statewide court vote when there’s no county executive contest, and for 20% of the statewide vote when there is one.I discussed earlier how much ground Joanne Kloppenburg needs to make up based on the February primary. Tuesday may be brewing as a perfect storm for a highly competitive Supreme Court race.
The Greater Wisconsin Committee Attack Ad on Justice Prosser
From InsideMilwaukee, the on-line service of Milwaukee Magazine, a discussion of the problem Justice Prosser has in being critical of the GWC campaign ad being run against him.
Money quotes:
Money quotes:
Prosser, in short, has reason to complain, but his protest could hardly be more ironic. For as a state Supreme Court Justice, Prosser had a chance to send a message about a far worse ad, the one by Michael Gableman, when he ran against then-Justice Louis Butler. The ad accused Butler of using a loophole to get a child sex offender out of jail early, thus enabling the man to commit another crime. In fact the criminal served his full sentence and only then committed another crime. This ad, moreover, was not by some shadowy third party, but was run by Gableman’s campaign. Finally, it was ugly in its racial connotation: Gableman sought to link Butler, a black justice, with a black criminal.
Yet Prosser wrote an opinion (joined by two other justices) that argued Gableman did not violate the judicial ethics code when he ran this ad. In essence, he set the ethical bar as low as he could, and now he’s suffering similar (though far less egregious) treatment.
But if Prosser has been put in a box, beset by what he considers an unfair ad, and unable to defend himself without appearing injudicious, well, he might reflect on what happened to Butler. This was a man of integrity and a truly temperate, well-liked justice, who quite possibly lost his bid for reelection because of an outright lie.
Maybe Act 10 - The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight - Part 1 - WERC worried about certification elections
OK, 10,000 man hours divided by 21.5 FTE's is 465 man-hours per WERC employee to conclude the elections by May 1. There are 32 days left before May 1. But the vast bulk of the work is going to be in compiling, sorting and counting the ballots, which apparently haven't even been printed up yet. Hum, someone's going to be earning some righteous overtime in April. Maybe the return envelopes for the ballots can be addressed to a private contractor in India.
If you read the letter from Ms. Nuemann from WERC, all that is missing is the "WTF." Here is the money quote:
Uh, this might have needed some discussion before now. The letter sure makes it sound like no one consulted WERC about the big union-busting plan in advance of rushing the BRB through the legislature. This certification fiasco can be seen as part and parcel of an imperial approach to governance. Or part and parcel of the utter secrecy approach to governance. Or part and parcel of a devoutly dumb approach to governance. Or all three.
All of this may be financially and logistically impossible before May 1, 2011, even with a fee assessment. We wanted to apprise you of these thoughts and estimates now in the event you would like to discuss them with us at any point in time.
Assessing fees against the unions for these elections will be gasoline on the fire.
(Hat tip to Jimmy Breslin.)
Cannon to right of us, Cannon to left of us, Cannon in front of us, Volley'd and thunder'd.
Kim Jong-Il
Here are excerpts from some of yesterday's press releases after Judge Sumi re-issued her TRO:
AFL-CIO PRESS RELEASE:
“Scott Walker & His Allies Continue to Make Mockery of Rule of Law in Defying Court Order
Walker & Republicans will do or say anything in pursuit of their extreme power overreach
On Monday, Gov. Scott Walker’s administration began enforcing a bill that is not yet law, with complete disregard for Wisconsin’s judicial and democratic processes, and in direct defiance of multiple orders not to do so. Today, Dane County Circuit Court Judge Maryann Sumi said the actions of Walker and his cronies put them “in peril of sanctions” and served to “jeopardize stability of [the] state.”
“Wisconsinites expect their Governor and his administration to follow the law, and the fact that’s even up for debate shows their actions to be completely reprehensible,” said Stephanie Bloomingdale, Secretary-Treasurer of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO
“Gov. Walker seems to think he’s a dictator who can ignore the laws of Wisconsin or trample of the rights of our workers in pursuit of his extreme overreach for absolute power,” said Phil Neuenfeldt, President of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO.
Comment: I have no idea where the AFL-CIO got the impression there were “multiple orders” being ignored by the Walker administration. I think they just decided to make that up to make the administration seem more sinister. The next sentence in the press release seems tailored to make it look like Judge Sumi had commented in court yesterday on “Walker and his cronies.” Judge Sumi doesn’t need that kind of help in this mess.
REPUBLICAN PARTY OF DANE COUNTY PRESS RELEASE:
The Republican Party of Dane County recognizes that Judge Sumi is a leftist living in Dane County. Her friends are leftists living in Dane County. Her son is a left wing activist in Dane County. She goes to cocktail parties held by leftists in Dane County. She shops at organic gourmet food shops run by leftists living in Dane County. If she were to enforce the law of Wisconsin and do what was in the best interest of the people of Wisconsin, she'd be exiled from her lifestyle. She'd lose her friends!
The leadership of the Republican Party of Dane County have all made the choice to stand against the Dane County elite. We accept that Left feels righteous vandalizing our homes and keying our cars. It's only fair. We disagree based upon logic and principle. That is intolerable! We prioritize the Constitution and the well being of the people of Wisconsin over foie gras at cocktail parties. That's the choice we made. We respect Judge Sumi's decision to live her life with the rich diversity that liberals cherish."
Comment: This press release seems to have Nancy Mistele’s angry fingerprints all over it. Not only is Judge Sumi a leftist, but her entire circle of foie gras munching friends are as well. What does the RPDC expect the leftists to eat? Johnsonville Bratwurst? Sargento cheese? Always a nice touch to go after the children as well. But, hey, at least they’ve pointed out the best store parking lots to use for recall canvassing.
DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF WISCONSIN:
“Judge Sumi’s order is a clear rebuke of the lawless reign of Scott Walker. He and his Republican lapdogs have behaved as laws unto themselves in their union-busting state-rending power grab. At the end of the day, the law will prevail and the Constitution will endure against all the insult this crew has committed to the rule of law.”
Comment: OK, DPW, you’ve just lost the votes of lapdog lovers throughout the state. This has the same sophisticated ring as Kim Jong-Il railing against the “Imperialist running-dogs.”
Come on folks, is this the best shot you've got? Serve up some red-meat!
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Went 2 a birthday party 4 a good friend @ a bowling alley
The Wisconsin ACLU appreciates this new approach, and did a great job tweeting the progress and testimony in Judge Sumi's hearing today from an overflow courtroom where tweeting was permitted. The tweets informed me that the big rush for presentation of the stripped down union busting bill on March 9 seemed a tad unnecessary, as the Governor's staff, LRB representatives and Scott Fitzgerald had been working on the stripped down verision of the Budget Repair Bill for two days before the conference committee was convened.
In addition to the ACLU, Governor Walker and Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch are also both on twitter. Here are the last couple days of the Governor's Twitter activity:
Went 2 a birthday party 4 a good friend @ a bowling alley on NW side of Milwaukee. Nice crowd.
What an upset: VCU over Kansas. Too bad it wasn't UW or MU going 2 the Final Four.
Former Lt. Governor Margaret Farrow writes about how we will help improve education in WI: http://bit.ly/g80RuF
IN Gov Mitch Daniels shows why what we're doing will improve jobs and control spending:http://bit.ly/f6Kx1P
Had dinner @ the Tee Pee in Tomah & saw Ed Thompson. Glad 2 see him out @ his supper club.
We are not alone:http://wapo.st/hKeYv6
Spoke 2 Assn of WI Snowmobile Clubs convention in Wausau. Big part of winter tourism efforts!
See how states that chose to "tax the rich" are facing big budget problems: http://bit.ly/fRHuGX
Marquette needs 2 come alive in 2nd. Buzz Williams better a good half time speech!
Meeting with business owners re: jobs plans.
Just sat down with Steve Walters for a WI Eye interview.
Watching UW Badgers take on Butler.
Good story about the positive impact on jobs:http://bit.ly/h4w9aR
Spoke to business leaders from around Wisconsin meeting in Pewaukee. We shared our plans to help create 250,000 jobs.
Signed bill to create new TIF district in Town of Brookfield for major new development that will create 750 jobs.
Toured CEI in Wrightstown. Their CEO emailed that they are hiring 35 more people because of better business environment.
Great stop @ Minnesota Wire in Eau Claire. Their CEO noted that our plans gave him real hope that we can repair the economy!
New jobs numbers are particularly encouraging 4 manufacturing: +3900 in Jan & + 4300 in Feb (vs -300 in Dec).
Many of these tweets simply convey a regular guy, a rabid fan of Wisconsin sports, a denizen of bowling alleys, a consummate cheerleader for Wisconsin in the mold of Tommy Thompson. Others seem intended to show gravitas, establishing that the Governor is on the right track with his economic and government reorganization plans.
Thinking of something new to post about that hasn't been beaten to death by smarter people is tiring, so occasionally I am going to chose a post from the Governor's Twitter page to talk about.
For today, let's start with deconstructing the new manufacturing numbers in the last post listed above:
"New jobs numbers are particularly encouraging 4 manufacturing: +3900 in Jan & + 4300 in Feb (vs -300 in Dec)."This post is based on job numbers released last Wednesday by the Department of Workforce Development. Each month the Secretary of DWD issues a press release that includes the last month's job numbers, comparing them to the previous month and the same month a year earlier. You can find these press releases here. With each monthly release, you'll see that the Secretary of DWD tries to say something relevant about the data. The Secretaries of DWD are obviously political appointees and if they don't want to find themselves standing inside a DWD job center they formally managed, they also have to be consummate cheerleaders. Here for example is what new DWD chief Manny Perez said, in part, about the December 2010 job numbers released in January (the state had lost 16,500 private sector jobs over the course of the month), just two weeks after the Governor was sworn in:
“Congratulations to Governor Walker for proactively showcasing Wisconsin at the national level and initiating legislative policies to improve the business environment in Wisconsin."
While businesses can usually move faster than governments in implementing institutional change, I seriously doubt that many of those jobs were created because of the Governor's policies. Adding those jobs to existing manufacturing plants, or moving those jobs into Wisconsin from outside the state would likely have taken some time to plan and execute. Those job likely should appear in a column labeled "Doyle."
The question that is still up in the air is what jobs the governor intends to credit to his campaign promise to add 250,000 jobs in his first four years. Let's hypothesize that a large portion of those jobs in January and February 2011 were added at two facilities: Oshkosh Trucks in Oshkosh, and Marinette Marine in Marinette. Why should any of those jobs go under the "Walker" column?
If the lame-duck Congress is willing to alter the contract-awarding process for the first phase of production of its littoral combat ship fleet, or LCS, Marinette Marine estimates it would add 1,000 employees to help build 10 of the vessels by 2015. In addition, [Senator] Kohl said, another 5,000 jobs could be generated among companies that supply parts and services needed to produce the ships. Kohl made his comments Thursday morning amid a crowd of employees inside DRS Power & Control Technologies Inc. in Milwaukee, which makes electronic equipment for the ship.If, in fact, the huge Navy contract awarded Marinette Marine leads to an additional 6,000 jobs in Wisconsin over the next four years, why should Governor Walker's policies be viewed by anyone as a factor?
I am sure that when scorecards were kept on the job creation performance of past Wisconsin governors, this kind of nuanced analysis didn't get attempted. They likely looked at the total number of jobs in Wisconsin when they took office and kept track of how the number grew over time during their adminstrations. But Governor Walker has consistently touted himself as a governor who will be bringing in new jobs from out-of-state, and encouraging the expansion of existing employers due to his new pro-business policies. Perhaps it is fitting to have his scorecard break out new jobs he has created that can be logically tied to his pro-business policy initiatives.
If we score the Governor based just on the raw data published every month by the DWD, his numbers look like this for his first two months (not seasonally adjusted):
Total employment at the end of February 2011 - 2,777,200
Total employment at the end of December 2010 - 2,827,700
Net loss of jobs in Walker Adminstration 49,500
Manufacturing jobs at the end of February 2011 - 435,300
Manufacturing jobs at the end of December 2010 - 434,200
Net gain of Manufac. jobs in Walker Adminstration 1,100
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