Walker to grab nose, hold breath until ACA repealed

At some point, denial and what ifs aren't a strategy anymore.  The Governor might actually have to comply with the law.

Gov. Scott Walker on Thursday reaffirmed his refusal to implement the federal health care law, despite the Supreme Court's ruling to mostly uphold it.

Advocates in the state praised the court's decision, a business group opposed it, and health care providers questioned some of its implications.

Walker said he hopes that after November a new president and Congress will end the law, saying it "would require the majority of people in Wisconsin to pay more money for less health care."

First it was waiting for the court to rule, now it's waiting for November.  When that doesn't work, what then?

Chief Justice John Roberts

Dear conservatives: here's to your strict-constructing Chief Justice.  Cheers!  I'm going to troll Free Republic all day and watch you guys call him a communist.

Taxpayers on the hook for more crazy open records fishing trips

Right in principle, terrible in practice.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court unanimously ruled Wednesday against the City of Milwaukee and for the Journal Sentinel in a dispute over whether a government body can charge for its employees to delete information deemed confidential from public records.

Reversing a Milwaukee County judge's ruling, the high court said Wisconsin's 30-year-old public records law has never allowed public agencies to charge requesters for redacting information from records.

The city argued it could charge for redacting under provisions of the law that allow fees to be charged for locating and copying records. The Supreme Court rejected that argument and said such fees could be used by government bodies to effectively deny release of records.

"This case is not about a direct denial of public access to records, but the issue in the present case directly implicates the accessibility of government records," Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson wrote in the decision. "The greater the fee imposed on a requester of a public record, the less likely the requester will be willing and able to successfully make a record request."

 (I'll spare you all the link to the MJS editorial that's already up, which reads like the MJS fellating itself.)

The Roggensack and Prosser concurrences are a worthwhile read because they hit on the head the nail that Abrahamson misses in speaking for the court.  Prosser, of course, has considerable experience in a branch of government that deals with open records requests.  Abrahamson has spent most of her career closeted in a branch of government that routinely denies requests because of the confidentiality of its work.  Gee, that's convenient.

Requiring the requester to bear at least a portion of the cost was the only manner at an agency's disposal to ensure that the requester was halfway sincere in his request.  Take that away and you can prepare for taxpayers to foot the bill for a lot more staff time chasing down records to fulfill nothing more than the public's increasingly voyeuristic desires.

As Roggensack notes, the issue in Osborn v. Board of Regents involved a request for over 450,000 records, which the court estimated would take an employee 4,687 eight-hour days to redact and compile.  Figure the goal is to do it in a year.  At roughly 240 work days a year it would require 20 employees to fulfill the request.  Do the goo-goos in the press posit that's a reasonable burden for taxpayers to bear?  Even at just $10 an hour, that's a cost of nearly $375,000 for one request.

The ruling is correct, but from a practical standpoint, the Legislature needs to revisit this and create some kind of policy to spare taxpayers the financial burden of public employees spending countless hours fishing for the sometimes thousands of records that journalists (or others) will request.  Perhaps fees need to be explicitly stated.  Perhaps individuals and organizations need to be limited in the number of requests they can make in a year, or the volume of staff time they're allowed to consume.  Perhaps the press would like to fund specific positions in state government who do all their open records work for them.  But doing nothing will be a giant, time-wasting recipe for disaster.

A shovel full of dirt? More like a dump truck.

Orrin Hatch buries his Tea Party opponent, a few months after nearly offing him at the convention.

Six-term Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) survived a primary challenge Tuesday night, easily beating former state Sen. Dan Liljenquist.

With 6 percent of the vote in, Hatch led Liljenquist 69 percent to 31 percent.

The senator’s victory was not in much doubt. In fact, the primary almost didn’t happen. If a candidate wins the support of 60 percent of the 4,000 state GOP convention delegates, there is no primary. Hatch took 59.2 percent at the April convention. That meant a head-to-head with Liljenquist among the broader GOP electorate — a race for which Hatch was better funded and better prepared.

So we've gone in four years from the Tea Party knocking off Bob Bennett at the convention without a primary to Orrin Hatch nearly dropping the Tea Party candidate in the convention and then destroying him in a general.

More proof that the Tea Party folks lack any kind of broad appeal that would make them a legitimate force in state-level races. 

Jan Brewer: Still not very smart

Everything about Arizona's immigration law got thrown out, except Arizona can still check to see if someone is undocumented, at which point the Supreme Court ruled they have no enforcement powers.

So of course, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer thinks that's a win.

“Today’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court is a victory for the rule of law. It is also a victory for the 10th Amendment and all Americans who believe in the inherent right and responsibility of states to defend their citizens. After more than two years of legal challenges, the heart of SB 1070 can now be implemented in accordance with the U.S. Constitution."

Yeah Governor.  It was a victory for the rule of law.  That's why you got killed.  Keep checking for documentation, and good luck getting ICE to take those calls.

Why does Eric Hovde hate Greek people so much?

Because it wasn't enough to put one foot in his mouth, Eric Hovde decided he'd cram the other one in there too.

In response to the Huffington Post making light of Hovde's earlier comment beseeching the press to stop writing "sob stories" about poor people, Hovde challenges Arianna Huffington to a debate.  And check out how he does it!

“I find it shameful that Arianna Huffington who, through her heritage, is well-versed on the devastating effect the debt crisis has had on Greek society, entitlements and their lower and middle classes would use my comments out of context to attack me,” said Hovde. “I will gladly debate Ms. Huffington any time and any place in front of a room full of journalists on what she has done for the less fortunate versus what I have done.” 

Oh, so wait.  Because she was born in Greece, Huffington therefore has a special understanding of the Greek economic crisis?  I'm sorry, how does that work?

Heidi Klum was born in Germany.  Does that mean she has a special understanding of killing Jews?  Oprah Winfrey is a descendant of slaves.  Does that give her special expertise on cotton picking?  Where does Hovde's half-assed logic stop?  For that matter, where does it even start?

Then Hovde immediately wants to throw down and start showing off all the great things he's done for the poors.  Um, pretty sure the Good Book says not to act like this, but maybe Eric's not really a Christian.  Maybe he's just a rich guy who does stuff for the poor to distract people from the fact that he's a douchebag.

And I wonder what the GOP Greek mafia has to say about this?  Where's Ted Kanavas, or Dan Vrakas, or Leah Vukmir to stand up for their fellow Greeks?  I mean, they did successfully get the state to acknowledge that the ancient Macedonians were Hellenes back in 2005, whatever that means.  Maybe Hovde should ask them why Greeks are all bad with money.

Hovde should drop out now before he wastes any more money making himself look bad.

Update: Hovde can't let it go.  Said Hovde at the Madison Club on Thursday, "I’ve been more involved than probably 99.9% of Americans, not just with money, but with my own personal efforts helping those that are disadvantaged."  Benevolence isn't a competition.  You're supposed to do good things just to do them, not so you can brag about it to your rich friends at a private club.  Go home, read Matthew 6, and try again.

Stupid is as stupid talks

Let's admire the idiocy in these comments.

In the November elections, it will likely be tough for Democrats to maintain the majority they recently won in the state Senate, but they say their situation can only improve in the state Assembly, where the GOP currently holds a 59-39 majority.

Joel Gratz, executive director of the Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee, says the party has sights on 15 to 20 seats, including many that Republicans won in the GOP wave of 2010, when a mobilized Republican base turned out in droves and ousted Democrats in a number of districts that were long-considered safe seats.

But there will be some infighting along the way.

At least three incumbent Democrats are facing Aug. 14 primary challenges, forcing legislators and progressive organizations to pick sides.

In inner-city Milwaukee, Democratic Rep. Jason Fields is being challenged by Mandela Barnes, a 25-year-old organizer for Milwaukee Inner-City Congregations Allied for Hope (MICAH), a social justice group affiliated with various churches.

Barnes asserts that Fields, who has sided with Republicans on issues such as school vouchers and regulation of the payday loan industry, does not reflect the values of the overwhelmingly Democratic 11th District.

“We will not stand with Scott Walker on any issues,” says John Jacobson, Barnes’ communications director.

“He was the only Milwaukee Democrat who didn’t offer any amendments to Act 10,” says Barnes, in reference to the scores of amendments Democrats unsuccessfully proposed to Gov. Walker’s anti-union bill during the 60-hour debate that preceded the act’s passage in the Assembly last year. “That raised some concerns.”

So if Scott Walker offered $100 million in fun money to MPS, or ponies to all little girls, Barnes would oppose it because it was Walker's idea?  Does his communications director understand how flippin' stupid that comment sounds?

But the candidate himself tops it, by criticizing Jason Fields for not offering a bunch of pointless amendments to a bill that Democrats in the Assembly had no ability to stop.  So what is Barnes proposing?  More time-wasting in the lower house?  Trust me, there's plenty of that going on as it is.  Assembly session days are lots of things, but one thing they're not is too concise.

Rich candidates say the dumbest things.

And hey, it's not even a post about Mitt Romney!

Wisconsin U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde told the local media he was tired of hearing sob stories in the media about the poor.  He chided the Mainstream Media to start writing stories about the national debt and other things he considers “real problems”.  Hovde was speaking to the Greater Brookfield Chamber of Commerce when he made the remark.

During a Q&A session, Hovde spotted a reporter in the crowd and chided him for writing too many stories on low income individuals.

Hovde said,

“I see a reporter here. I just pray that you start writing about these issues. I just pray. Stop always writing about, ‘Oh, the person couldn’t get, you know, their food stamps or this or that.’ You know, I saw something the other day — it’s like, another sob story, and I’m like, ‘But what about what’s happening to the country and the country as a whole?’ That’s going to devastate everybody."

There's even video!  The fun starts at 13:45.

For a guy who's a great candidate on paper, Eric Hovde sure is a train wreck in real life.

Because nothing says "I can relate to you" like...

... news that your wife's horse and trainer have qualified for the Olympics.

Ann Romney’s dressage horse, Rafalca, and her trainer, Jan Ebeling, earned a place on the U.S. Olympic Equestrian team on Saturday, cementing the Romney family’s already deep ties to the Olympic games. The official announcement is expected to come Sunday by the U.S. Equestrian Federation.

Rafalca and Ebeling will compete for the U.S. in the London Summer Games.

It's a relief that they're competing for the U.S., I suppose.  Can't say the same for all of Romney's help.  Meanwhile, Romney should probably start working on his beanbag and flippy cup skills to balance out this whole dressage thing.

When will the heads roll at MPD?

Looking at you, Mayor Barrett.  Maybe you need to have a chat with your friends on the Police and Fire Commission.

Milwaukee police record clerks have routinely changed computer codes by hand in a way that removes serious assaults from the city's violent crime rate, a Journal Sentinel investigation has found.

This is done even when the department's computer system flags the incidents as cases where an aggravated assault classification is warranted because a dangerous weapon was used.

Instead of correcting the report to put the incident in the proper crime category, in hundreds of cases clerks or supervisors changed the weapon listing to generic codes that avoided triggering additional scrutiny by state and FBI crime analysts.

That allowed the incidents to be reported as simple assaults, a lesser classification that is not part of the city's violent crime rate, which Police Chief Edward Flynn and Mayor Tom Barrett have touted as dropping for four consecutive years.

While Flynn has blamed computer issues for more than 500 cases of misreported aggravated assaults identified by a Journal Sentinel investigation in May, a review of the process shows any computer shortcomings are exacerbated by clerks who department officials now acknowledge handled cases incorrectly.

It is unclear how long the incorrect changing of weapon codes has gone on, how often cases flagged as errors are properly revised and how clerks were trained or instructed to handle them.

"It defies belief that this problem could be the result of 'computer error' or random mistakes by clerks," said Samuel Walker, criminology professor at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. "Why are the errors so concentrated in one crime category and the mistakes all in the same direction?"

While people of all political stripes love to claim the MJS is biased against them, people on both sides should also agree that the MJS reporters do a lot of damn fine investigative work.  Stuff like this is why journalism matters.

He must've lost the croquet set.

I bet Walker serves Johnsonville brats and then liberal protesters slap Democratic legislators for eating them.

Fire up the grill with some nonpartisan charcoal or bipartisan propane.

Gov. Scott Walker's brat summit is on.

Walker scheduled the informal social cookout for Tuesday afternoon, one week after he easily won a recall election that was sparked largely by initiatives he pushed through the Legislature with little or no bipartisan support.

Ten thoughts on Tuesday

1. Recall organizers were the sound and fury signifying (almost) nothing. The only thing Wisconsin got out of these recalls was millions of dollars in out-of-state dollars paying for campaigns.  I guess we can chalk that up as economic stimulus?  And no, I don't count control of an out-of-session Senate as an accomplishment.  It's a consolation prize at best.

2. Marty Beil and Mary Bell may have had their worst night ever.  Eventually, your members are going to catch on to the fact that you aren't getting the job done.  You and your predecessors spent years putting all your eggs in one basket, never imagining a day when you wouldn't have Democrats in control of some political arm of the state that could protect you from your own arrogance.  Beil said that union members were "not going to pull a blanket over our head and pee in our pajamas."  Sure, but it might be time for Marty to s@#$ his pants.

3. In spite of #2, this wasn't a referendum on unions. If Barrett won, it wouldn't have been an endorsement of them.  That Walker won isn't a rejection of them.  Voters recognize that government needs the ability to engage in reasonable cost controls.  Have unions been an obstacle to that?  Yes, especially in school districts.  But I think many voters also recognize that, whether they are members or not, unions provide one of the last prevailing counterbalances to big businesses running roughshod over America and its political system.  The average Joe supporting Scott Walker does so for very different reasons than the Koch brothers.

4. If we took all the money out of this election, I'd bet that Walker still wins.  Democrats are right to complain about this post-Citizens United free-for-all.  Ultimately, letting rich people crowd out the voices of the many with their concentrated wealth isn't healthy for democracy.  It's also not why Barrett lost.  The sooner they stop fishing for excuses and start learning from their mistakes, the sooner they'll get their sorry ship turned around.  Or they can do what the Democrats of the mid-late 90's did and set themselves on a course for near-permanent minority status.

5. Barack Obama's looking pretty good in Wisconsin.  Obama comes out up double digits on Romney in exit polls on a day when Walker beats Barrett by seven.  More proof that independent voters are king in Wisconsin, and there's a sizable contingent of Walker/Obama voters right now throwing their weight around in elections.

6. It's time to reform the recall process.  If people want competent governance, they have to be smart enough to realize they're never going to get it from a perpetual campaign.  Wisconsin either needs specific criteria for recall or it needs to raise the signature threshold to something that comes closer to ensuring the ultimate success of the recall effort.

7. The Democrats have no bench.  Hey Democrats, who are your frontrunners for the 2014 gubernatorial election?  You just killed off Tom Barrett and Kathy Falk.  You have nobody in the Congressional delegation.  If Ron Kind wouldn't do it now, at a time when you really needed him, why's he going to do it later when he has to give up his House seat to do it?  And what else?  Your Young Screamers contingent?  Supertwitterer Chris Larson?  Gordon Hintz, lover of the happy ending?  The ever-sanctimonious Kelda Helen Roys?  That'd be like the GOP hanging its hat on Andre Jacque and Tyler August.

8. Senator Miller, on behalf of the Senate pages and staff, please don't let your members goad you into doing office moves.  Wait until November, lest those poor people have to move everything back if the GOP beats Jessica King or takes the Holperin seat.  That's a lot of potentially wasted time and energy and taxpayer money.  Change the titles on the doors and let it rest for now.

9. Congrats to Wisconsin on the fine turnout.  Not bad for a non-presidential election.  There was one thing certain early on in the day yesterday - neither side would be able to blame a loss on not getting its voters to the polls. 

10. Let's not do this again for awhile.  And by awhile, I mean ever.

Wisconsin's own John Edwards?

Love is in the air...

Yesterday, the University of Minnesota's Dr. Bernadette Gillick was best known as a nationally recognized scientist for her research into how the brain recovers from injuries.

After today, she will likely be forever known for coming forward and telling the world that Scott Walker fathered a child and refused to take responsibility for it while at Marquette:

Bernadette Gillick was a college freshman in 1988 when she first met Scott Walker. It was spring semester, and she had just transferred to Marquette University. She was assigned a room in O’Donnell Hall (then a women’s dormitory), which she shared with her new roommate, Ruth (not her real name). Ruth was dating Scott Walker, who was 20 at the time, and, according to Bernadette, Ruth was deeply in love with him.

Midway through that spring semester, Bernadette alleges, Ruth found out she was pregnant. She informed her boyfriend, Scott, and initially he was supportive. That support changed to callous indifference for his girlfriend’s predicament after Scott informed his parents of the pregnancy.

Bernadette reports that at this point Scott began denying that he was the father of the baby, and when Ruth said she was considering an abortion, he claimed he didn’t care, as he wasn’t the father anyway.

Bernadette remembers being present when Ruth was dealing with the wrath of Scott’s mother, who allegedly admonished Ruth for trying to “ruin [her son's] reputation.”

Liberals also believe they've unearthed a photograph of Walker's love child:

Playground Picks: Scott Walker for Governor, Mahlon Mitchell for Lieutenant Governor

Twenty months ago, I said "Your vote should be for Scott Walker. In four years, Wisconsin will either be in remarkably better shape or remarkably worse  shape. But if you end up going down, at least you'll have gone down swinging. Voting for Barrett is like voting to take a called third strike and hoping you can take first because the catcher lets the ball pass by him."

Twenty months later, I never would've guessed that in the intervening time there might be more literal swinging at the Capitol than figurative swinging.  That said, I see no reason to change my position.

I think Governor Walker's demeanor in office his first year largely sucked.  I think Act 10 went too far in removing the ability of public employees to negotiate workplace conditions.  But at the same time, WEAC in particular pushed things too far in the other direction for decades, so maybe it was only natural that when the pendulum swung back it might go too far in the other direction.

Is Wisconsin better for Act 10?  Absolutely.  Act 10 was worth it if only to give government the ability to better negotiate the cost of health insurance benefits.  Countless public sector employees have the same benefits this year as they did last year; the only difference is that their employer is saving taxpayers giant sums of money.  The loss was to the insurance companies, and last I checked, Democrats liked it when insurance companies lost.

Was last summer's budget perfect?  No.  Was it vastly better than the work that preceded Walker in the decade before he became governor?  Absolutely.  Policy objections aside, the point of a budget is to pay for what you spend.  And by that measure alone, Walker did better in his first effort than Jim Doyle or Scott McCallum ever did.

Does Walker lead from behind too much?  Yes.  Should he have taken a more visible role in developing a compromise on mining legislation?  Absolutely.  Aside from a big win on Act 10 and passing the budget, Walker's agenda was largely stalled out or non-existent.  He needs to do better.

Meanwhile, Tom Barrett is still Tom Barrett, running another lukewarm campaign for governor.  Do I think he was the Democrats' best choice?  Absolutely.  Do I think that says something unfortunate about the Democrats' bench strength in Wisconsin?  Absolutely.

Democrats need to spend more time cultivating future leaders in the legislature and less time turning the place over to retreads like Peter Barca, Fred Kessler, Jim Holperin, and Tim Cullen.  Now Joe Wineke may well be on his way back, which would be a huge benefit to the rudderless ship that is the Assembly Democratic caucus but again fills the need for real leadership with old blood instead of new blood.  And no, whiners and screamers like Kelda Helen Roys, Gordon Hintz, and Chris Larson are not leadership, any more than Tom Nelson holding sleepovers in the Assembly chamber was leadership.

For lieutenant governor, one must seriously consider whether Rebecca Kleefisch is capable of doing anything other than putting on a plastic smile and spouting catchphrases - especially in light of Gov. Walker's potential legal issues.  The consensus opinion from those in and around the Capitol seems to be that she is not.  So why not do what many of those closest to the epicenter are doing - cast your vote for Walker, and then vote Mahlon Mitchell for lieutenant governor?  Mitchell doesn't have experience in elected office, but his career experience is certainly more in line with public service than someone who read cue cards for a living and thinks her relationship with Christ is a qualification for elected office. 

Among a bunch of mediocre choices, Scott Walker and Mahlon Mitchell are Wisconsin's best bets.  Good luck with the next two years.  You'll need it.

Turn the lights out.

If one assumes that the polls from the 2010 Walker/Barrett race are a rough guide, we know that those polls taken in the two weeks prior to the election, when averaged, almost nailed Walker's final number.  Walker averaged 52.0 percent in polls versus 52.3 on election day, a difference of .6 percent from what was projected.  We also know that those polls underestimated Barrett's final number by about 7.6 percent of his projected total; 43.3 percent in polls vs. 46.6 percent on election day.

Right now, over the last two weeks, Walker is ahead an average of 52-44 among the three polls taken.  If we assume the model from 2010 holds, that would put the final results as follows:

Walker - 52.3% (no change from 2010)
Barrett - 47.3% (a 1.5% improvement in his number from 2010)

Barring a major shake-up in the next day (like Walker being criminally charged), I don't think anything is going to move these numbers considerably from where they are now.  There aren't enough undecided voters for Barrett to make anything happen.

Also, having been back in the state for about 48 hours, I want to send all Wisconsinites my sympathies that you've had to sit through all of these awful commercials for the last month.  On the flip side, I have very much enjoyed the "Recall Santa - I didn't get what I wanted" yard signs I've seen around Green Bay.

And a prediction?  How about a clean sweep - Walker by 4 and the GOP holds all four Senate seats, even in spite of Terry Moulton and Van Waangaard's efforts to screw that up.  Hope that "more democracy is better" ethos makes a good parachute for the Democrats, because it's a long way to the bottom.