"Stonewall" Nelson ducks question, hides behind autism stuff

Some of you may know there was a budget provision that allows for the Oneida to make an end run around local municipalities and obtain liquor licenses directly from the state. As you can imagine, folks in Hobart aren't too excited about this.

When asked about the matter last week, here's what your Princeton-educated, Assembly Majority Leader Tom Nelson had to say...

It appears as though Tommy Boy can't walk and chew gum at the same time. I guess they don't teach that stuff at Camp Wellstone!

Also, watch how peevish his body language becomes when the reporter stops throwing softballs. Great stuff. Wonder if he'll teach this approach to Ted Zigmunt.

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, adieu

I've had a few days to digest and ponder Sarah Palin's curious resignation. I'm not particularly interested in why she resigned or what she's going to do next. I'm also not that interested in her next run for public office. It will end in failure, I'm sure of it.

What does interest me is what Palin represents to the GOP.

Great conservative apparatchiks, whether Lee Atwater or Ralph Reed or others, knew well how to manipulate undereducated, rank-and-file conservatives. It's not hard, since many of them aren't that smart.

That's not to say they aren't God-fearing or hardworking or good parents or fine citizens. But they just aren't that intelligent when it comes to matters of policy or politics. They're not sophisticated enough to have much of a view on anything outside their own community, so they tend to focus on things that can be understood simply and easily - things like morality, a morality often imparted by a local church and taken as gospel without any kind of intellectual questioning.

They don't understand foreign policy or trade policy or tax policy or the kinds of economic matters the GOP power players are interested in. But they do get gay marriage and abortion and school prayer. So for a generation, the GOP talked about the latter in an attempt to gain enough power to influence the former. (N.B. Democrats do this bait-and-switch too, but I'm not talking about them right now.)

Today's conservatives, however, aren't in on the joke. Politically, they came of age hearing these paeans to Christian fundamentalism, without understanding that these were simply techniques of convenience used to sell other parts of the GOP agenda.

They are, in other words, mistaking the sizzle for the steak.

Many modern conservatives soldier on like theocrats, trying to sell this homophobic, xenophobic, Europhobic, Islamophobic, liberal-phobic sizzle as though it's the main course. They think you win debates by proclaiming that policies are "liberal" or "socialist" and then thrusting your arms upward in triumph. Those who come from this camp are rarely interested in honest discussion because they're rarely capable of intellectually defending their positions. They like using one-word labels to dismiss contrarian worldviews, and then quickly retreat to the comfortable surroundings of those who agree with them.

Sarah Palin is tailor-made for these folks. And this is the GOP's trainwreck-in-waiting.

The more that Palin talks, the more that is known about her, the less appealing she becomes to America-at-large. However, those who already think she's the bee's knees only seem to love her more with every accusation, every questionable joke.

Even as the breadth of her support narrows, the intensity of the support she receives grows greater, a fatal attraction for a political party whose base seems increasingly detached from anything resembling reality. To reinforce their delusion, those folks then go around talking about how the "other side" is afraid of or intimidated by Palin's superhuman political skills.

Hardly. Sarah Palin is an erratic, intemperate politician of average intelligence and below average eloquence. If she ran for President in 2012, she would undoubtedly suffer a loss worse than anyone since Walter Mondale met the Reagan steamroller in 1984. I remain confused as to why anyone would be scared of such a politician, but for the fact that lots of social conservatives are ineloquent and profoundly average and seem enamored by the notion of electing someone equally ineloquent and profoundly average to public office. Call it the insurgence of the mediocre.

The political arena will never be kind to Sarah Palin because her entire political career has been built around sizzle. Let her relegate herself to the arena of talk radio or Fox News, somewhere that she can live a comfortable existence and never again have to worry about how to answer a difficult question or articulately defend her positions or address her stunning lack of honesty because what she believes will be of no real consequence to anyone.

We will all be better off for it.

Badger Poll: An accurate look at what old people think

Seriously, if I surveyed 593 people and this was the best I could do, I would keep calling until I had results better than this.

Breakdown by age:

(N) = 593
18-29: 31 (5.2%)
30-44: 92 (15.5%)
45-59: 204 (34.4%)
60+: 266 (44.8%)

While the broader results are weighted, you've still got a poll where 31 people are effectively allowed to speak for approximately 20% of the population, and a sample in which those 31 people have to have landline phones in order to participate.

When you consider that nearly 40% of people in that age group don't have a landline, something tells me that 31 people with landline phones might not be representative of their age cohort.

Nice try, guys. Maybe it's time to step back from the landline polls and try a different approach. Or just do polling for the AARP - seems like their members are the only people you can find.

Democrats propose giant auto insurance subsidy for Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha

Here's an absolute gem that has appeared out of thin air in tonight's Assembly-Senate budget agreement:

Conference Committee: Modify provisions in the substitute amendment relating to motor vehicle insurance policies and insurer practices to: (a) limit "stacking" of motor vehicle policies (combining coverage limits for multiple vehicles to determine the limit of insurance coverage available for bodily injury or death suffered by a person in any one accident) to three vehicles owned by the insured; (b) prohibit an insurer from placing an insured in a high-risk category because the insured previously had no motor vehicle insurance; and (c) prohibit an insurer from assessing risk based on where a vehicle is registered. Specify that these provisions would take effect on the first day of the fifth month beginning after the bill's publication, and first apply to motor vehicle insurance policies issued or renewed on that date.

Let's focus on B and C to see what a total giveaway this is to the Legislative Black Caucus (featuring Pedro Colón).

Most auto insurers set their rates by a number of factors, one of which is geography. Typically, insurers use zip codes to do this.

As we all know, if you are Leon Young's constituent, you are more likely to get your car stolen or broken into than if you are, say, Jen Shilling's constituent. Accordingly, Leon's constituents have to pay more to obtain the same level of insurance as Jen's constituents because vehicles there are at greater risk of theft or damage.

What this proposal does is consider all of Wisconsin one geographic zone. Which means auto insurers would no longer be allowed to consider geography when establishing premiums.

Similarly, insurers consider how long a driver has been insured because it gives them a reliable data on a driver's safety history. By refusing to allow insurers to consider this information, Democrats are trying to financially protect existing drivers who have chosen to drive without insurance but will now be required to carry it.

What's the point of this? Well, it appears as though the Legislative Black Caucus (featuring Pedro Colón) finally figured out that its constituents, more than any others, were going to take it in the behind as a result of Democratic efforts to mandate 100 (individual)/300 (combined) levels of liability coverage for all drivers.

Assuming Milwaukee to be like many other big cities, a fair number of the LBC's constituents are either not carrying insurance to begin with or are carrying the minimum 25/50 levels that insurers offer. So instead of making their constituents bear the financial consequence of their decisions, the LBC would like to spread the cost of that risk over everyone else in the state.

That means if you're a constituent of Jen Shilling, or Ann Hraychuck, or Mark Radcliffe, or Captain Air Guitar, your auto insurance premiums are going up. Not just because you might have to buy more insurance, but because Democratic legislators want you to subsidize a bunch of drivers in unsafe neighborhoods who don't have auto insurance right now.

In terms of evaluating the likelihood of property damage, geography is the single largest determinant of risk - and Democrats don't want to let insurers use it. So if you live in La Crosse, or Black River Falls, or Platteville, or Fort Atkinson, your legislators are about to ask you to suck it up so Lena Taylor's uninsured constituent can ride a little bit cheaper. How does that make you feel?

I don't see what the big deal is.

The Sarah Palin faux outrage machine is in full gear yet again, this time over the following photoshop effort mocking an Alaskan radio host's love of the governor:

But oh noes, this person did the unthinkable. She photoshopped the host's head over that of the official Palin family mascot, Trig the Special Needs Baby™. Of course, since everyone has forgiven David Letterman already, America's favorite slutty flight attendant had to make another stink. Said Palin flack Meghan Stapleton:

Recently we learned of a malicious desecration of a photo of the Governor and baby Trig that has become an iconic representation of a mother's love for a special needs child.

"Iconic representation of a mother's love"? Wow, talk about a self-absorbed description. A politician parades her retarded baby around for political gain and that makes her the Virgin Mary or something?

Here's the deal, Sarah. The second you stop parading around Trig the Special Needs Baby™ like not aborting him makes you the greatest woman ever, then maybe people won't be photoshopping random heads on his body. After all, there wouldn't be all those photos of him with you on the campaign trail if you weren't using him for personal gain first.

It's abundantly clear that Palin is desperate to remain in the headlines however she possibly can. It's a good thing for her I'm lazy, or I'd slap Hitler's head on that kid's body just because I can. Shouldn't a governor have more important things to worry about than bloggers?

An die (Schaden)freude

Marital struggles are never a laughing matter. They are, however, sometimes ironic, and irony is often funny. And so it goes with yet another conservative crusader, Mark Sanford, who has flamed out today in so spectacular a fashion that I can't help but be reminded of that fateful day in third grade when we all got together to watch the space shuttle Challenger explode in front of our young, impressionable eyes. Here's your train wreck of a confession:

Also, you should read a few of the emails that have been released between Sanford y su novia. Surely the gays are to blame for this marriage crumbling. And why is it that we never care when Democrats are doing this stuff?

Oh yeah. Because most Democrats aren't sanctimoniously lecturing us about who people should marry or how we should run our lives.

If conservatives were really serious about protecting marriage, they'd demand that adultery laws be enforced and they'd make no-fault divorce illegal. But they're not, because those are sins that they and their colleagues commit. So instead, we get a bunch of conservative adulterers and serial monogamists lecturing America about the sanctity of marriage.

The GOP's credibility is shot, and stuff like this just adds more fuel to the fire. Can we just run Palin/Huckabee in 2012, lose by 14 points, and get it over with? Please?

Reading between the lines, vol. 2

Today, the Wisconsin Farm Bureau put out a press release calling for use value assessment to be left as it is. You can read the release here, but for your benefit, I thought I would translate some of the political spin into easy to understand language that any property owner can understand:

Wisconsin's largest agricultural welfare organization is asking its members to contact their local legislators and the governor's office immediately and urge them to preserve its enormous property tax subsidy before the state budget bill moves to conference committee this week. In its weekly e-newsletter on Friday, the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation issued a call to action after the State Senate passed its version of the state budget last week--which includes a two sentence provision that states 'any land that is platted or zoned for residential, commercial or industrial use cannot be considered agricultural land.'

"Initially on Wednesday we thought that this provision would wipe out a gigantic tax shift on a minimum of 250,000 acres of ag land located within city and village boundaries," the memo stated. "However, we quickly learned it reaches much further than that. All farmland zoned rural residential by town or county governments would also be taxed at reasonable rates. In reviewing some zoning maps for some of towns that are heavily ag-focused, it was discovered that vast tracts of prime farmland that for whatever reason, were zoned rural residential - probably because most people think houses should be built on it. It became clear that much of Wisconsin's ag land was at risk of being taxed on what it's actually worth."

The WFBF also cited a television news interview in which a Brown County farmer calculated that his property tax would go from $3.50 per acre on prime farmland to $85 if the proposal becomes law. That would equate to $60,000 more in property taxes each year, or an increase of 2,300 percent. "That's way more than the $30,000 to $40,000 my farm gets every year in commodity subsidies from the USDA. Of course, that's just one of the myriad of subsidies and tax breaks you guys give us. I know times are tough for everyone right now. I bet a lot of you small business owners wish the government was cutting you a check too, just for doing your thing."

The farmer failed to mention how residential property owners have been carrying his ass ever since use-value assessment was implemented over a decade ago. He also failed to mention that earlier this decade, many of his fellow farmers lobbied their legislators to allow the assessed value of their land to go negative, so that other taxpayers would have to pay them to simply own property.

"We need agricultural welfare queens from every county in every corner of the state to speak up about this draconian action," the Farm Bureau says. "We need legislators and Governor Doyle to know that they must remove this provision from the budget. We cannot allow them to form the impression that it is ever okay to tax a farmer for anything."

The organization says its Website has contact information for each of the state's Assembly and Senate representatives, as well as Governor Doyle's office. The URL address is: www.wfbf.com. The Farm Bureau also sent an editorial to many of the state's largest newspapers and mailed postcards to over 25,000 farm families.

If I buy two lots in a subdivision, and I build on one and allow the other to revert to its natural state, you can bet for damn sure that nobody's allowing me to devalue that lot for tax purposes because I'm choosing not to build on it. Why is it that farmers think everyone else should always shoulder the financial burden and risk of their particular profession?

Dear Gordon: You can run, but you can't hide.

I see that video of you was deleted. You know, the one where you talk about how bad garbage fees are and how the state can't seem to control its own spending. That was my bad, really. I should have thought to download it to my computer and repost it under my own YouTube account so that you couldn't f!@# with it.

But you know what, Captain Air Guitar? The best part about the interwebs is that it believes in second chances. So if you thought you could bury that video and forget about it, well...



Not quite. A big thanks to Mr. Pelican Pants and another anonymous commenter for their fine work.

Black legislators endorse zero-fifths compromise for prisoners

I get what they're trying to address, but it's ironic that three African-American legislators are pushing a constitutional amendment that would establish that a class of individuals would not count as part of the general population during the apportionment process.

MADISON – Rep. Frederick Kessler, D-Milwaukee, today introduced a state Constitutional amendment to change the way state and local electoral districts are drawn. If enacted, the amendment would direct that incarcerated felons, who may not vote, also not be counted toward the population of the districts where their prisons are located. Joining Kessler in proposing the amendment are Reps. Spencer Black, Tamara Grigsby, Robert Turner and Polly Williams.

Slaves couldn't vote either. Hell, many states said slaves were property and not people. But we still counted them as six-tenths of a person.

Here's another suggestion that wouldn't require a constitutional amendment - why don't we just build prisons in Grigsby's and Turner's and Williams' districts so we don't have to move their constituents so far from home?