define('DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT', true); define('DISALLOW_FILE_MODS', true); No Runny Eggs » steveegg

No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for posts by steveegg.

June 26, 2009

The penultimate budget is in the pipeline

by @ 0:42. Filed under Choo-choos, Politics - Milwaukee County, Politics - Oak Creek, Politics - Wisconsin, Taxes.

Revisions and extensions part 13 (7:09 pm 6/26/2009) – Since the DemoBudget has passed the Assembly 51-46, and we’re now at the final act of the biennial sign-and-hack from Gov. Jim Doyle, I’ll be updating a fresh post rather than this one.

Revisions and extensions part 4 (12:42 am 6/26/2009) – Moved up to the top (originally posted 6/25/2009 at 10:58 pm) with the 17-15 Senate passage (despite no bill text available). The most-vulnerable Dem Senator, Jim Sullivan, was again allowed to vote “no”. Start packing your bags.

R&E part 5 (12:59 am 6/26/2009) – Finally found the amendment text, which modifies the Senate version (as amended by a pair of amendments). Sorry I don’t have a clean-text version.

I have to thank Kevin Fischer, Sen. Mary Lazich’s (R-New Berlin) aide, for pointing me to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau’s comparison between the Assembly changes, Senate changes, and Conference Committee’s changes to the Joint Finance Committee Daughter-of-Necrobudget. This will be the version that Jim “Chainsaw” Doyle (WEAC/HoChunk-For Sale) will take his veto pen to because under state law, it cannot be amended by the full Legislature. Of course, as of 10:47 pm, WisPolitics’ budget blog doesn’t have the full text of the final substitute to AB75 (the budget bill), but apparently the 24-hour clock started ticking about 8:15 pm.

I haven’t done a hard analysis yet, but it just keeps on getting worse. From Sen. Lazich:

  • Total spending is up $4,000,000,000, or 6%.
  • The state-level/RTA-level increases in taxes are $2,100,000,000.
  • Total property taxes will go up $1,500,000,000, with the median home property taxes going up $90 at the end of this year and $130 at the end of 2010.
  • Borrowing increases by $2,900,000,000.
  • The structural deficit (how far in the hole the FY2012-2013 budget will start) is $2,300,000,000.

In case you missed the math, the total 2-year tax increase will be $3,600,000,000. There’s also a few kickers (straight to the nuts delivered with steel-toed boots) I want to get out there tonight:

  • The statutory general fund reserve will be halved to $65,000,000 for the duration of the budget. That is necessary because the FY2011 “net balance”, with that change, would be $149,100. No, that is not a misprint – that is less than the salary of the average full-tenured UW professor.
  • Drop the current 60% exemption on long-term capital gains to 30%, except for certain farm property/equipment. That represents a 2-year $242,500,000 tax increase from current law and a $72,300,000 tax increase from the Joint Finance Committee/governor version of the budget.
  • The KRM/SERTA Assembly provisions pretty much are final, except that it wouldn’t be the sole clearinghouse for federal grant money for the transit companies/authorities in southeast Wisconsin. To resummarize:
    • The car-rental tax in Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha Counties would go up from the current $2 collected by the soon-to-be-replaced Regional Transit Taxing Authority (the one that used $450,000 of its $500,000 tax take to lobby for higher taxes) to $18, $2 higher than the JFC/Senate version.
    • The Racine bus system and Kenosha bus system would each get $1/car rental from that only if the host city matched the funds. Rep. Robin Vos (R-Racine) told me earlier this evening that the only acceptable method would be a $10/car wheel tax.
    • Any other community in either Racine County or Kenosha County that wants a stop on the KRM would need to dedicate a “sustainable funding mechanism” to their respective county seat’s bus system. I failed to ask Rep. Vos what that definition was, but I suspect that it would also be a $10/car wheel tax.
  • The “prevailing wage” provisions would apply to both SERTA and the Milwaukee Transit Taxing Authority (the former was added by the Senate, the latter by the conference committee).
  • Speaking of the Milwaukee Transit Taxing Authority, the Assembly 0.65% sales tax plan is adopted, with Lee Holloway getting a third person on the board.
  • The Chippewa Valley and Chequamegon Bay (Bayfield/Ashland Counties, which I somehow missed in the Senate version) RTAs live on, but the Fox Valley RTA is dead.
  • Sen. Jeff Plale’s last-ditch attempt to get the state to pay for 75% of a I-94/Drexel Interchange instead of the usual 50% (since Franklin and Northwestern Mutual reneged on verbal agreements to pay for 25% and Oak Creek will not pay the full 50% local cost) is out, which means no I-94/Drexel Interchange.

There’s a lot more, but I’m too tired to keep going.

Revisions/extensions (11:15 pm 6/25/2009) – I decided to add the major points of the KRM tax to this post.

R&E parts 2 and 3 (12:36 am 6/26/2009 and 12:37 am 6/26/2009) – Good news/bad news on the illegal alien front – the illegal-alien drivers’ licenses are out, but the illegal-alien in-state tuition is still in.

Also, despite the continued lack of the actual bill over at WisPolitics, the Senate has taken this up, mostly because Alan Lassee (R-De Pere) is absent attending to his ill wife, and thus two Dems can safely vote “no” lost track of the math.

R&E parts 6 (8:26 am 6/26/2009) and 7 (8:31 am 6/26/2009) – Jo Egelhoff (who gave me entirely too much credit) found that card-check union organizing for UW research assistants is in the budget. AFSCME and SEIU bought this government, and the Dems, specifically Assembly Speaker Mike Sheridan and Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker, who snuck it in in conference, are bound and determined to give them their moneys’ worth.

Meanwhile, Christian Schneider found that the chiropractors got another leg up on regular doctors. Any bets on the donation splits from them in the 2010 election cycle?

R&E part 8 (9:03 am 6/26/2009) – As noted above, the mandate for a UW-Stevens Point school of nursing and the requirement to spend just over $3 million for advance planning for a new UW-Madison school of nursing building, slated for construction in the FY2012-2013 budget, is in there. Paging East Side Plale.

R&E part 9 (2:34 pm 6/26/2009) – Brett Healy over at the MacIver Institute lists the dirty dozen items in this version of the budget. Items I haven’t listed yet:

  • Use $3,333,400 in general revenues to provide “engineering services” in Milwaukee, made out of whole cloth by Decker and Sheridan.
  • Rob $1,800,000 from five Milwaukee-area school districts, Oconomowoc, Mequon-Thiensville, Fox Point-Bayside and Nicolet, and give that to the Madison school district, again created out of whole cloth by Decker and Sheridan.
  • Full-speed death of the Qualified Economic Offer, same as Doyle’s, the Senate’s, and WEAC’s wishes (once again, the purchaser of this government gets what it bought).
  • Again out of whole cloth by Decker and Sheridan, extend in-state tuition benefits in the UW system to all foreign nationals, not just the illegal aliens I noted earlier. Supposedly said foreign nationals will need to swear that they either applied to become permanent residents or that they will once and if they become eligible to do so.
  • Make sure the portions of state government that get shut down as the result of either the hiring freeze or a furlough stays shut down, just as the Senate and AFSCME ordered (again, the purchaser of this government gets what it bought).
  • Again out of whole cloth by Decker and Sheridan, move up the start date of the new $0.75/line/month 911 fee from the later of 10/1 or 3 months after the budget is signed to 9/1, for an additional $5,000,000.
  • Again out of whole cloth by Decker and Sheridan, redirect $9,200,000 of a $37,000,000 raid from the Petroleum Inspection Fund (funded by a $0.02/gallon tax on gas and diesel) from the transportation fund to the general fund.

I can only wonder just how much more will be found after the 24-hour circuit breaker the Assembly has gets reset. In fact, I’m surprised that in their rush to remake the entirety of state government into a secretive chamber of lawmakers lawgivers, the Democrats didn’t get rid of that circuit breaker.

R&E part 10 (3:22 pm 6/26/2009) – While mandatory auto insurance, first put in by the Senate, as well as the highest minimums in the country, first put in by Doyle, is part of this, Recess Supervisor found a pair of stinkers added in out of whole cloth by Decker and Sheridan at the insistence of Pedro Colon and the Legislative Black Caucus – new insurees can’t be put into a high-risk category because they never had insurance before, and insurance companies can’t assign risk based on where a vehicle is kept. That’s right, those of you upstate and in the burbs get to subsidize the accident- and theft-prone in the hearts of Milwaukee, Madison, and Racine. Rep. John Nygren (R-Marinette) has more on this, including the fact that the soon-to-be-law Wisconsin ban on area-based risk will be the the only one of its kind in the nation, and that other states (like Michigan) rejected it. Once again, Michigan beats us.

R&E part 11 (yes, we are that far, and there’s still time before the Assembly rubber-stamps this, 4:58 pm 6/26/2009) – Cathy Stepp found a stinker of an item from the Assembly version that popped back in – the allowance of the Department of Commerce to promulgate the initial rules for the new construction contractor registration program as “emergency rules without the finding of an emergency”, with the rule lasting . Using the emergency rules power under s. 227.24 of the state statues means no prior consideration for small business as provided by s. 227.114, no review regarding its effect on housing as provided by s. 227.115, no economic impact report as provided by s. 227.137, no advance copies provided to the Legislative Council staff as provided by s. 227.15, no prior hearings or notice thereof as provided by s. 227.16, 227.17 and 227.18, no prior legislative review as provided by s. 227.19, and no time to prepare for its implementation between its publication in the official state newspaper (or state website as provided by other provisions in the budget) and the first day of the following month as provided by s. 227.21.

There’s more agencies that get to implement “emergency rules” without the finding of an emergency, including the Department of Revenue’s new requirement to impose a 1% tax withholding on independent contractors (originally in the Assembly version).

R&E part 12 (5:03 pm 6/26/2009) – Greg Bump, who has been the on-the-scene man, reports that, after agreeing to waive the 24-hour rule, the Assembly will begin their rubber-stamping process at 5:30. He also posted the request from the little piggies known as the Wisconsin Alliance of Cities to Doyle to use his veto pen to eliminate the 7/1/2011 sunset of the $0.75/line police/fire protection tax (formerly known as the 911 tax) and eliminate the loosening of fireworks laws. I’m shocked, SHOCKED to see the spenders squealing for the continuation of a brand-new tax.

As an aside, I will be creating a fresh post when the Assembly does rubber-stamp what Kevin Binversie has freshly deemed the DemoBudget. Very apt name, don’t you think?

June 25, 2009

Roll change – BBA retirement edition

by @ 23:52. Filed under The Blog.

The Badger Blog Alliance has been retired. There’s no word yet where my blogfather will end up, though I hold out hope for Spotted Horse 3.

Yet another loss to Michigan

by @ 23:48. Tags:
Filed under Business, Politics - Wisconsin.

The Janesville Gazette reports that General Government Motors will be retooling its Orion, Michigan plant, which currently builds the Chevrolet Malibu and was slated to close later this year, to build its next-generation Chevrolet subcompact. The Orion plant beat out the already-shuttered Janesville plant, which built the Chevrolet Tahoe/Suburban (and GMC sisters), as well as the soon-to-be-closed Spring Hill, Tennesse plant, which makes the Chevrolet Traverse after being retooled away from the Saturn compact line.

Since there was no way that Government Motors would spare jobs in a Republican-leaning state, the race was really between Wisconsin and Michigan. When the business climate in Wisconsin is so bad that even a government-run operation won’t locate here, one has to wonder why we’re about to make it even worse.

Revisions/extensions (9:22 am 6/26/2009) – The Detroit News reports (H/T – FoxPolitics) that Orion offered GM a 100% tax break on new equipment and machinery for 25 years (up from a 50% tax break on same in an earlier offer) as well as a 50% tax break if it expanded the plant. Somehow, I doubt that it isn’t better than Jim Doyle’s offer (via the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel).

R&E part 2 (9:33 am 6/26/2009) – The folks who run the NewsHub Twitter stream just let me know they’re still working on trying to find out what Wisconsin’s offer was.

A couple things to keep in mind; the Janesville plant is already a shell – GM auctioned off pretty much everything that could be unbolted, including items that would have been useful in building subcompacts. While the cost of stripping out the unnecessary tooling has already been borne, the fact that they will be starting with nothing more than a shell of a building has to also be taken into account.

Speaking of the shell of the building, the Janesville plant is the oldest facility recently used by GM, opening in 1919. The Orion Assembly facility opened at the end of 1983. The ages of the facilities also comes into play, especially since energy costs are about to go through the roof nationwide.

Leah Vukmir to challenge Jim Sullivan

by @ 23:30. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

I was neglectful in getting this onto the blog, but I had live coverage of this morning’s announcement on the Twitter stream. Rep. Leah Vukmir (R-Wauwatosa) will be challenging Sen. Jim Sullivan (D-Wauwatosa) in the 2010 election. Since there was too much traffic in front of Gilles Frozen Custard to use the digital voice recorder, I’ll repost the press release:

Vukmir Announces Candidacy for 5th Senate District

District deserves a Senator focused on creating jobs and rebuilding our economy

(Wauwatosa,WI)…Citing a need for a Senator who better reflects the priorities of the people of the 5th Senate District, State Representative Leah Vukmir (R-Wauwatosa) today announced her candidacy for the State Senate.

“Wisconsin has lost 130,000 jobs in the last year. We need a Senator who cares about getting people back to work instead of figuring out how to squeeze more tax revenue from our families and employers,” Vukmir said. “This campaign isn’t about me. It’s about the people of the 5th Senate District getting the representation they deserve.”

Standing before a crowd of supporters gathered at Gilles Frozen Custard in Wauwatosa, Vukmir touted her record of supporting private sector job creation, tax relief, education reform, and health care reform.

“The 400 Harley Davidson workers laid off in April needed a senator who understands that higher taxes kill jobs,” Vukmir said. “When the economy soured, some politicians in Madison were concerned only with how to raise enough tax revenue to fund their spending addiction. My priority has been, and will always be, creating jobs and providing core services in the most efficient way possible.”

A Registered Nurse and Certified Pediatric Nurse Practitioner, Leah Vukmir was first elected to the State Assembly in 2002 and has been reelected three times. In 2008, she received 62% of the vote. In the current session, Vukmir is the Ranking Member on the Assembly Committee on Health and Health Care Reform. She is recognized by her colleagues as a leading advocate for taxpayers. Vukmir holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Marquette University and a Master of Science in Nursing from UW-Madison. The 5th Senate District is comprised of portions of the cities of Milwaukee, Wauwatosa, West Allis and Brookfield and the villages of West Milwaukee and Elm Grove.

I did ask Rep. Vukmir on possible replacements for her in the Assembly, and she said there were several good candidates.

I wholeheartely endorse Vukmir for the 5th State Senate District.

Open Thread Thursday – 6/25/2009

by @ 9:18. Filed under Open Thread Thursday.

If it’s Thursday, it’s Open Thread Thursday. It’s been a while since we’ve done metal madness…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MII3ns2KTBc[/youtube]

I’ve got some traveling to do today, so I’ll throw in a few links to start you off (no, this is not the return of The Morning Scramble):

I’ve given you the best kind of start, 1,400 megatons worth of links. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go be the press over at Gilles; Rep. Leah Vukmir’s making a special announcement there in less than 44 minutes.

June 24, 2009

iD bought out, no real changes

by @ 19:50. Filed under Business.

(H/T – Abraham)

This one hits a bit close to home because I’m a fan of iD Software and have just about every title they’ve published since Wolfenstein 3D (which reminds me; I need to get Wolf3D for the iPod Touch). Ars Technica reports that Zenimax Media, parent company of Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls series publisher Bethesda Softworks, has bought iD. The good news is that Zenimax plans on no changes at iD, with all the principals signed to long-term contracts. The better news is that it wasn’t UbiSoft, Activision or EA that bought iD.

Must-watch Wednesday – Mary Katharine Ham tries to read Waxman-Markey

by @ 17:38. Filed under Energy, Envirowhackos, Politics - National.

It may no longer be called HamNation, and she doesn’t do videos nearly as often as she used to, but Mary Katharine Ham is back with a vengeance on the Waxman-Markey Cap-and-Trade-Tax bill about to be rammed down our throats…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rHOxnZDbDU[/youtube]

The 1,201-page version that just got marked up (as H.R. 2998) isn’t even the final version that will be rammed through on Friday, but it will be at least a not-at-all-reasonable facsimile.

Revisions/extensions (7:22 pm 6/24/2009) – I hope MKH doesn’t get laryngitis reading the bill. So far, she made it through the table of contents. Instead of posting videos, I’ll direct you to her YouTube page.

Scratch Ford, Nissan and Tesla from the good cars list

by @ 10:22. Filed under Business, Politics - National.

Fox Business reported yesterday that Ford, Nissan and Tesla will partake in the Department of Energy’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program, a $25 billion loan program from the federal government ostensibly to finance plant changes “needed” for improved fuel-economy and improved-range electric vehicles. Ford’s $5,900,000,000 will go for converting a pair of truck plants into car plants, technology to improve the mileage of its core line (Focus, Escape, Taurus and F-150), and other improvements to its engines. Nissan’s $1,600,000 will go for electric vehicle production in its Tennessee plant. Tesla’s $465,000,000 will go to begin mass production of its first vehicle, as well as a battery pack designed for the Smart.

That’s right; your federal government is not satisfied with getting its meathooks into the Not-So-Big Three, and has decided to go whole hog into the Japanese Nissan (or is it the French Renault, as Renault holds close to half of Nissan?).

Any guesses as to what will eventually happen to Ford and Nissan? Here’s a hint…

June 23, 2009

Buh-bye cookies

by @ 14:56. Filed under Business.

Republic Airways Holdings, which already has a rather substantial relationship with Midwest Airlines, will be acquiring the whole kit and caboodle, 100% of the equity (currently split 53%-47% between TPG Capital and Delta Air Line) and a $31 million secured note held by TPG, for $6 million in cash and a $25 million/5-year note, which can be converted to Republic stock for $10/share. The press release linked to also states that the rest of the Boeing 717 aircraft owned by Midwest will be replaced by smaller, but longer-ranged, Embraer 190 aircraft already operated by Republic.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that, prior to the takeover, Republic had loaned Midwest $31 million and assumed a $4.2 million judgement against Midwest relating to non-payment of jet and jet-engine leases.

The obligatory L’affair Flynn-McBride followup

by @ 14:06. Filed under Presstitute Follies.

Semi-retired blogger James Wigderson, in the comments of my original post, pointed me to Milwaukee Magazine Bruce Murphy’s response to Dan Bice’s multi–day attack on Jessica McBride and Milwaukee police chief Ed Flynn, specifically focusing on McBride’s actions while working on the profile of Flynn and prior to its publication, and on Bice’s insinuation that the affair happened during the creation of the profile. While it doesn’t change the stupidity shown by both McBride and Flynn, it does at a minimum mitigate the breach of journalistic ethics by McBride, and introduces one by Bice.

Murphy laid out the timeline of Milwaukee Magazine’s involvement in this:

  • Murphy wanted to do a profile of Flynn, and McBride accepted that in late October, 2008.
  • In December 2008, McBride had a single face-to-face interview with Flynn, with police spokeperson Anne E. Schwartz in attendance. There were some follow-up e-mails, and Murphy maintains that that was the extent of communications between the two prior to the publication of the Milwaukee Magazine story in mid-April.
  • On April 23, after publication of the story, and after McBride asked Murphy about any reaction from Flynn, Flynn e-mailed McBride, using his police office computer network, complimenting her on the story and suggesting they get together for coffee, something done on May 1. Of note, this e-mail was not part of Bice’s stories, but was released by McBride afterwards.

Murphy goes on to include evidence that McBride sought to include several negative quotes in the profile, including those rejected by Murphy, and then holds that up as evidence that she wasn’t in love with Flynn. While I’m not a professional reporter, I will not take the inclusion of negative quotes in both the original submission of the piece in January and the final rewrite in February as anything more than what it is; an attempt to present a “balanced” profile.

Murphy also stated that both he and Schwartz provided Bice with evidence that the affair did not begin until after the profile was published. Bice chose not to include that.

John McAdams has done yeoman’s work and tracked down Bice for reaction to that. While Bice hadn’t read the Murphy piece, he does some refuting and counterpunching of his own:

  • The infamous “love letter” has a pair of quotes refering to the December meeting when McBride became smitten with Flynn.
  • A claim that the April 23 e-mail referenced above was private and not subject to open records requests.
  • Bice further claims that Murphy should have informed his readers there was a problem with the profile because he knew about the affair for at least the two weeks Bice had been working on the story.

That leaves three items in contention: whether Milwaukee Magazine should have either put a warning on or spiked the profile, whether merely being “smitten” with one’s source constitutes an irrepairable breach of journalistic trust, and Bice’s actions in pursuing and ultimately breaking the story. The first is the simplest – given the available evidence, Murphy had no reason to suspect that there was so much as a romantic spark between McBride and Flynn prior to publication.

Regarding the “smitten” relationship, McAdams said it best – “We would argue for ‘bright line’ standards where journalistic ethics are concerned. Whether a journalist is smitten by somebody she is writing about (and whether this has distorted the reporting) is very much a judgment call. Whether she and a subject have romped between the sheets is a hard factual issue.” If Murphy’s recounting is accurate, it doesn’t appear that the profile was distorted by the fact McBride was “smitten” by Flynn. Indeed, Murphy is standing behind the profile as published.

That is not to say that the between-the-sheets romp that happened over the last two months does not represent a irrepairable breach of journalistic trust going forward, especially as it relates to McBride’s teaching of journalism. It does.

Finally, there’s Bice’s actions. For reasons known only to him, he left out several items in his series, and proceeded to write it in a misleading way. Further, Mark Belling, on his Friday show, noted that Bice was claiming Belling was working on the story and that he would break it on Thursday’s show in order to get the early admission from Flynn. Belling said that, while he was aware of the story, was not pursuing it, and in fact told Bice that on Thursday when asked.

June 22, 2009

Roll bloat-and-change, too many to list

by @ 8:16. Filed under The Blog.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been reworking the bloated roll to your right, adding stuff I read, removing stuff that is no more, correcting links, and creating a new category for bloggers who have retired their places of abode. As the title says, there’s just too many new ones to list, so just look for the new ones. Each one has something like a 1-in-350 chance of being on top because randomness is how I roll.

June 21, 2009

The honeymoon with the voters that care is now over

by @ 9:09. Filed under Politics - National.

(H/T – JammieWearingFool)

Rasmussen Reports just released today’s edition of the Daily Presidential Tracking Poll, and President Obama’s Presidential Approval Index is now -2 (for those that missed the “-” in front of the “2”, allow me to restate it – minus two). While 32% of the 500-likely-voters-per-night/3-night-rolling-average strongly approve of the way that Obama is performing his Presidential duties, 34% strongly disapprove of the way Obama is performing his Presidential duties.

I guess Shoebox was just short of 2 months off on cutting off the poll date. Oh well, I guess the warranty on the teleprompter just expired.

Of course, the news isn’t all bad for Obama. His overall approval rating is still 53%, though that is tied for the lowest approval rating so far, while his overall disapproval rating is 46%, just off the highest disapproval rating so far. So, why did I word the title the way I did if all of the above are “likely” voters? Simple; those with strong feelings one way or the other are more likely to act on them than those who care less, especially when it appears that Rasmussen is doing everything it can to eliminate the “don’t knows/don’t cares”.

June 19, 2009

Emergency roll bloat – very forgetful edition

by @ 20:30. Filed under The Blog.

Somehow, until Sam pointed it out, I didn’t realize that I didn’t have yoSAMite says on the bloated roll. Sorry about that, Sam; it’s fixed now.

The obligatory L’affair Flynn-McBride post

by @ 18:39. Filed under Law and order, Politics - Milwaukee, Presstitute Follies.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Dan Bice broke the news that Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn and UW-Milwaukee journalism lecturer/freelance journalist Jessica McBride (both married, and not to each other) had an affair at roughly the same time McBride wrote a lengthy piece on Flynn in Milwaukee Magazine. There are a few different directions I can take this bout of stupidity from the two of them.

First, if other rumors are true, this is not the first time either one of them have had an extramarrital affair. That limits my sympathies to the children of McBride and her husband, and any minor children Flynn may have.

Second, while this is a serious ding in Flynn’s credibility, it is not quite fatal for him. For those on the left that want to bleat hypocrisy, there is a major difference between Flynn and former President Bill Clinton – unlike the serial denier, who lied about L’Affair Clinton-Lewinsky to a federal grand jury investigating him for sexual harrassment, Flynn got out in front of this and admitted it, as well as apologized, before the story hit print. In fact, the Journal Sentinel reports that both Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett and the Fire and Police Commission are standing behind Flynn.

The same cannot be said for McBride. She has in the past taught journalism ethics, so she knows that it is a serious breach of trust to be bedding one’s sources, whether it is before the stories are written or whether merely the spark is formed during the course of pursuing the stories with ignition shortly thereafter.

Revisions/extensions (2:07 pm 6/23/2009) – Thanks to James Wigderson, there’s a follow-up that includes Bice’s questionable tactics and writing, based on a revealing of the timeline.

WTMJ-DT down, not quite out

by @ 18:05. Filed under Miscellaneous.

For those of you who get your TV through antennas or satellite, WTMJ-DT went off the air about 12:20 am this morning, and is still off its normal digital channel (if memory serves, physical channel 27). For a short while, it also affected Time Warner subscribers and for a longer time, it affected Charter subscribers, but they managed to get a hard-wire solution.

In the meantime, Journal Broadcast and Weigel Broadcasting, which runs WDJT-DT/WMLW-CA/WBME-DT, has made arrangements to put a standard-definition signal on one of its WBME-DT subchannels, channel 49-2.

Related to that, WTMJ is the only private Milwaukee station that is able to run weather updates in HD. Hey WITI, WISN and WDJT – get off your duffs.

Revisions/extensions (8:38 pm 6/19/2009) – As capper points out in the comments, the on-air version of WTMJ-DT is back.

Sam’s the man

by @ 16:38. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

I’ve been so busy (or at least out of it) lately that I missed this announcement from Sam Hagedorn, the man behind YoSAMite Says and all-around good guy:

Today I filed my papers to become a candidate for the Wisconsin Assembly – 12th District. This is the seat currently held by Rep. Fred Kessler.

I’m running on who I am – a conservative.

I think the state government should lower taxes. How? Well first by looking for duplicate services and eliminating them. Those who receive money should be held to the highest standards and if they don’t meet those standards, they should stop getting the funds.

This budget and previous one’s have been put together behind closed doors. Our legislators need to be held accountable, especially when deciding on how to administer money. No budget should be voted on until the citizens of the state have a say in it. We need a daylight budget process.

I also believe that education is priority. The state should encourage the best in schools, no matter if it is a public, private, charter, choice, virtual school or home schooling. What matters is the education received.

In this economy and really at all times, job creation is important. Private industry provides the best avenue for job growth and entrepreneurship. The state should not stand in the way. Less government allows for more freedom to grow in all areas of life including the business climate.

I’ll have more on my website within a couple of weeks.

For those who don’t know the districts, the 12th covers most of the far northwest side of Milwaukee and the very-far northwest part of Wauwatosa.

Good luck, Sam. The bad news is that, other than Kathy Carpenter, the Cheddarsphere has not had any success in elections.

June 18, 2009

Open Thread Thursday – thermonuclear edition (6/18/2009)

by @ 8:08. Filed under Open Thread Thursday.

Krazy Kim is threatening to launch a missile at Hawaii (via Michelle Malkin’s Twitter page). The Angry Webmaster wonders whether President Obama will give a damn if his mother state gets nuked. I say, invest in SPF 1,000,000,000 sunblock.

Beyond that, and the $300 million in additional spending and a $485 million tax hike on the majority of Wisconsinites with investments passed in the State Senate’s version of Daughter-of-Necrobudget last night (via JSOnline), I’ve got nothing. Go ahead and fill in the blanks.

Revisions/extensions (8:15 am 6/18/2009) – For those of you outside of Wisconsin (and for those of you who forgot how capital gains in Wisconsin works), Wisconsin currently treats capital gains far differently than the federal government treats capital gains. Instead of classifying capital gains as short-term (less than 1 year of holding the property), medium-term (between 1 and 5 years of holding the property) and long-term (more than 5 years of holding the property) and taxing each group at a separate rate, Wisconsin takes 40% of all capital gains and taxes it at the highest applicable income tax bracket. What the State Senate did, instead of going for a oil company tax. was take the proposal from Doyle, the Joint Finance Committee and the Assembly Democrats to tax 60% of capital gains and make it 100% taxable. I believe Nevada is calling.

June 17, 2009

RTA Madness – Senate edition

by @ 22:04. Filed under Choo-choos, Politics - Milwaukee County, Politics - Wisconsin, Taxes.

The Senate passed their own version of Daughter-of-Necrobudget on a virtual-party-line vote (Jim Sullivan, the target of a recall, was allowed to vote no along with every Republican). Others will cover the rest of the changes, but since I’m a laser on the RTAs, I’ll distill the differences between the Assembly version and the Senate version (thanks again to Greg Bump over at WisPolitics for doing the dirty work):

  • The Chippewa and Fox Valley RTAs are out.
  • The provision to allow Dane County to use its sales tax to fund roads is also out.
  • The Southeast RTA is once again solely focused on the choo-choo, with all funding to the existing Racine and Kenosha buses (i.e. the additional $2 car-rental tax to make the total $18) as well as the requirement of Racine’s and Kenosha’s suburbs to fund the bus systems to get a KRM stop out.
  • The Milwaukee County Transit Authority gets the “Regional” title back, with the sales tax bumped up to 1.0% and the “parks, culture and (county) emergency medical services” joining transit in the 85% (no percentage specified for each category) not allocated to municipal police, fire and EMS (allocated on a per-capita basis).

On to conference, where I expect nothing less than the worst of all worlds.

Four-Blocking the relationship between government and smokers

by @ 8:56. Filed under Health, Politics - National, Politics - Wisconsin.

Tom McMahon does it again:

There’s already a spirited discussion in the Four-Block World comments, so join it.

Rainy Read Wednesday – Christian Schneider’s “McCallum’s Last Laugh”

by @ 8:50. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

Christian Schneider, who besides me is the charter member of the Scott McCallum Fan Club, wonders how the state budget situation would be different had Scott McCallum beat Jim Doyle back in 2002:

During his brief tenure, McCallum proposed a number of items that, had they passed, would have made the current recession infinitely easier to deal with. In his initial budget, in which he faced a $600 million deficit, McCallum proposed capping general fund spending to the same rate that tax revenues increase during a biennium….

In the same budget, McCallum proposed depositing 50% of any unintended revenues into a budget stabilization fund, in the event tax receipts fell short in the future….

Perhaps most importantly, McCallum made real cuts to real ongoing state programs – a decision which may have cost him his governorship. In the 2002 budget repair bill, McCallum proposed phasing out the state’s Shared Revenue program, in which the state sends $1 billion per year to local governments.

Related to that, Christian introduces us to Doyle’s new best friend – Rosy Scenario. I guess the difference in acceptable-to-Craps tax assumptions between exiting a mild recession (5% from McCallum, which is the 20-year-average) and in the midst of a devastating one is less than 0.5 percentage points.

June 15, 2009

The very few who will not see a tax increase in WisTAXsin

by @ 9:08. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin, Taxes.

If you meet ALL of the following conditions, you might not see a tax increase courtesy the Daughter-of-Necrobudget:

  • You must make less than $300,000 per year in reported income
  • None of your earnings can be from capital gains
  • You must not drive
  • You must not smoke (unless you shop at an Indian reservation tobacco store)
  • You must not drink
  • You must not get sick enough to enter a hospital or urgent care center
  • You must not purchase over-the-counter drugs
  • You must not buy downloaded software, songs or videos
  • You must not shop in Milwaukee County, Calumet County, Winnebago County, Outagamie County, Eau Claire County, Chippewa County, or the urbanized portion of Dane County
  • You must not shop at a business or buy from a business that has operations both within and outside of Wisconsin
  • You must not own a business
  • You must not rent a vehicle in Milwaukee County, Racine County or Kenosha County
  • You must not own any real estate
  • You must not own a phone

If you can claim all of the above, you just might not see a tax increase. There might be some dope dealers and users that meet all this, but the rest of us will be seeing a tax increase.

Revisions/extensions (4:54 pm 6/15/2009) – Fred decided to add to the list some over at the MacIver Institute. In addition to those who rent real estate…

  • You must not operate a power boat.
  • You must not operate any small engines requiring gas for operation.

I’m sure there’s more restrictions on who doesn’t get their taxes raised.

WP 2.8 bug – the file editor

by @ 7:20. Filed under The Blog.

While I like WordPress 2.8’s new file editor because it displays line numbers, and offers syntax highlighting and function help, actually using it to edit either plugins or themes breaks the blog.

June 14, 2009

Weekend hot read – Michael Totten on Iran

by @ 18:19. Filed under International relations, Politics.

All I have to say is, read Michael Totten now. He’s been on top of the Iran blow-up since before they actually blew up. Today, he sees a bit of what happened in 1979 happening now…

The great Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski witnessed and wrote about dozens of revolutions in the course of his life. He has, perhaps, seen more revolutions than anyone in the history of the world. He knew, while he lived, revolutions better than anyone.

In his book Shah of Shahs, about the Iranian revolution in 1979, he describes the beginning of the end for the Shah Reza Pahlavi….

(Lengthy excerpt of the book describing a 1979 encounter between a policeman and a protester removed; the policeman backed off after failing to convince the protester to go home)

Now take a look at this video uploaded from the city of Isfahan. A ferocious-looking unit of armed riot police officers is shown running away in terror from civilian demonstrators.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRUTh76486I[/youtube]

Believe me, there’s a lot more there than I can bring over here.

Related to that, Jon Ham wonders where the Obama administration and CNN are. Good question.

WP-Polls temporarily disabled – UPDATE – re-enabled

by @ 9:24. Filed under NRE Polls, The Blog.

Due to an error with WP-Polls 2.5 and WordPress 2.8, I’ve temporarily disabled WP-Polls. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Revisions/extensions (10:08 am 6/14/2009) – Lester Chan was very quick in offering a fix, but it turned out the ultimate problem is with WordPress’ plugin editor function. In any case, polls are back.

R&E part 2 (12:44 pm 6/15/2009) – Had a nagging bug with the dark-gray bar displaying on the second poll question as the method of displaying multiple polls changed from a WP-Polls method to using multiple widgets. Lester got it 3/4ths of the way there, but that caused me to lose all the widgets below the polls. Finally found the problem, and got that 100% squashed.

Sorry about the limited site availability for a bit.

June 12, 2009

RTA madness expanded, explained – and revised

by @ 16:55. Filed under Choo-choos, Politics - Wisconsin, Taxes.

Revisions/extensions (4:55 pm 6/12/2009) – I’ve moved this post (originally published 4:28 pm 6/11/2009) to the top. The summary from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau is in (pages 38-42), and things get worse. I’ll clear up the original post a bit, and explain below.

WisPolitics’ Budget Blog reports that a rather sweeping amendment to the various Regional “Transit” Authorities contained in the Daughter-of-Necrobudget has been made by Assembly Democrats:

  • The Fox River Valley RTA in the governor’s budget has been restored, including the 0.5% sales tax.
  • The Chippewa River Valley also gets an RTA, with an unknown funding source a 0.5% sales tax.
  • In a reversal of the usual car-taxes-to-transit subsidy, Dane County, and only Dane County, will get to use its 0.5% RTA sales tax to repair roads.
  • At the insistence of the Federal Transit Administration, the KRM taxing authority’s responsibility is expanded to include Racine’s and Kenosha’s bus systems, paid for by a $1 car-rental tax in the cities of Racine and Kenosha (which makes the total KRM RTA car-rental tax initially $17 in Racine and Kenosha; it is unknown whether, like the larger car-rental tax, this will be auto-indexed for inflation) an additional $2 car-rental tax in Milwaukee, Racine, and Kenosha Counties, raising the total tax to $18 per car-rental transaction. Of note, the bus systems only get the tax money if the cities raise funding of their transit systems (i.e. raise local taxes) by that amount.
  • The new sales tax the Milwaukee County Board gets to levy for their Regional Transit Taxing Authority drops from 1.00% to 0.65%, but instead of also funding parks, cultural, and emergency medical services programs, 23% of the new tax (or 0.15% on the bottom line) will go to “offsetting police and fire costs in communities in Milwaukee County”. If you believe that will go anyplace other than the City of Milwaukee, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

So, why all the changes, and why now? Apparently, despite being close to $2,000,000,000,000 in the red for the 2010 budget, the federal government has enough money to reward those who grow government and raise taxes by creating RTAs by September.

Yes, that’s right. Much like the demand by the Assembly Democrats to the cities of Racine and Kenosha to raise local taxes so that they get a pittance of an amount from a state-imposed tax increase, the federal government is demanding local tax increases and increased amounts and levels of government to get a pittance of an amount from the already-overtapped federal Treasury.

Begin expanded explanation. Regarding the Southeastern Regional Transit Authority (the rebadged KRM Authority):

  • The car-rental tax is increased from $16 per transaction to $18 per transaction, indexed for inflation.
  • The city of Racine’s bus system would get $1 of that, and the city of Kenosha’s bus system would get $1 of that, only if each city “generates new funds to match the vehicle rental tax revenues”.
  • No other community in either Racine County or Kenosha County gets a stop on the choo-choo unless they provide a “sustainable funding mechanism” of an unspecified amount to contribute to their county seat’s existing bus system.
  • Instead of empowering the Milwaukee County and Racine County executives to make appointments, it depowers the Kenosha County Executive and gives the Kenosha County board chair that seat’s appointment power.
  • The SERTA will become the sole clearinghouse of grants made to the FTA by all three counties.
  • Pedro Colon gets a KRM stop at Lincoln Ave. and Bay St. to go along with his previously-porked-in National Ave. stop.

Regarding the Milwaukee Transit Taxing Authority:

  • Delete the “Regional” from the name.
  • The 0.15% sales tax imposed for “police and fire protection” will be split based on the number of officers and firefighters (i.e. almost all the money’s going to the city).
  • Specify that the MTA would be a tax-exempt entity.
  • No word on whether the 15% requirement to the city of Milwaukee to run the mini-choo-choo is still in.

Regarding the Chippewa Valley Transit Authority:

  • Eau Claire County would be first, pending both county board and voter approval.
  • Any municipality that has any presence in Eau Claire County would automatically be part of this.
  • If it is established, Chippewa County could join the same way (county board and voter approval), with the decision to either join or leave binding on all municipalities in Chippewa County.
  • Membership, with 4-year terms, would be set by each member county, with no more than 17 total and including three members appointed by each county member’s county executive and approved by the county board (one of which would be an initial 2-year term, then 4-year terms after that), a member appointed by the mayor of each member county’s largest city and approved by that city’s common council (an initial 2-year term, then 4-year terms after that) and a member appointed by the governor.
  • The funding source would be a 0.5% sales tax.

Once again, the screwing gets deeper. Maybe I should hire Moron Pundit to put together a way-NSFW graphic.

Revisions/extensions (9:12 am 6/14/2009) – I have to thank Lance Burri for the Rule 2 boost.

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

[No Runny Eggs is proudly powered by WordPress.]