No Runny Eggs

Just because I’m in Vegas (I’ll just say that the Unreal one would be in 7th heaven) and I left the headphones at the hotel doesn’t mean I can’t follow along with at least some of the news. I’ll even try to follow the first lessons in not taking gratuitous cheap shots at people like Dane County pers…er, DA Brian Blanchard.

Unless Dane County DA Brian Blanchard manages to convince AG J.B. Van Hollen to appeal the decision of the District 4 Court of Appeals to the state Supreme Court, former Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen (R) will get a new trial. Hopefully, it won’t be before a kangaroo court this time. The court found that not only were the instructions given to the jury by Dane County Circuit Judge Steven Ebert to convict were improper, but that his prohibition of Jensen’s defense team to introduce evidence that the former Assembly Democratic Caucus was doing the exact same thing without reason was improper.

Well, have to go. Next conference starts in about 15 minutes, and I have to finish my final votes. Remember, vote that slate on the right sidebar one last time before 4 pm Central.

I’m late to this party (I never dumped the WTMJ feeds onto the laptop, had issues with my e-mail most of the day Friday, and didn’t want to bury the DAD stuff), but Charlie found out that Jim “Craps” Doyle (WEAC/Potawatomi-For Sale) or one of his political minions obtained the names of those who received a Wisconsin Higher Education Grant for the 2006-07 school year but were “wait-listed” for the 2007-08 school year in apparent violation of federal privacy laws, and then instructed Michelle Curtis, associate director of Student Financial Services at UW, to send out a blast e-mail to invite them to a Craps dog-and-pony show on the WHEG. Jessica McBride, who works in the UW system at UWM, points out that it is further a violation of state law for a UW employee to engage in political activities while at work, and points to a UW memo that states the prohibition includes use of campus e-mail and equipment.

One tidbit I can add thanks to my presence in DC; that federal law is so restrictive, Vicki McKenna was told by somebody back at WIBA that the e-mail addresses of those who received this coercive e-mail would not be obtainable through an open records request.

But you would from somebody like Jessica McBride. She’s not letting her tombstoning from the radio stop her from digging for the real story. You didn’t read this in the local paint-catcher’s lionization of one Kimberly Prude, but the unanimous 7th Circuit decision upholding her conviction on charges of voting in the 2004 fall general election while under state supervision for a felony found that she knew from multiple sources that she could not vote while still on probation, including signs at the polls that informed felons still under state supervision they could not vote.

One of the things that came out in the original trial was that she was working the polls that election, and that she engaged in activities that were less than above-board. Why did I have to wait for the decision to find that one out? Oh, and one more question (also asked by Jessica); why in the hell was she working the polls?

Go, read his take on the crisis that is Milwaukee, then if you’re in any position to do anything about solving that crisis, whether you’re a politico or “merely” a citizen, DO IT!

From today’s JSOnline’s DayWatch –

• A 16-year-old boy was shot and killed about about 1:50 a.m. this morning in a yard in the 2100 block of N. 38th St. – I could’ve swore that today was a school day at MPS.
• A 23-year-old man was ejected from a car and died about 2:40 this morning after a crash he apparently initiated on S. Layton Blvd., police said. According to police reports, the man started attacking the 23-year-old woman who was driving the car southbound. – Two words, and only two words can describe this one; “Just damn”.
• An 18-year-old student at Pulaski High School was arrested after a gun was found in his locker Thursday, Milwaukee police said today The gun was not loaded, said police spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz. She said the boy dropped the gun from his pocket during a class Thursday…. – Not only is MPS failing to teach kids to any sort of standard, they can’t even teach basic stay-out-of-jail skills. The FIRST place the cops are going to start looking for a gun after you drop it in a classroom (where you shouldn’t be armed in the first place) is your locker.

Nope, this is not a crisis, at least according to Mayor Tom “Milk Carton” Barrett. If it weren’t so tragic, I might laugh at that proposition, because it definitely IS a crisis.

Speaking of DayWatch, is anybody else having issues with the HTML in their RSS feed (I won’t mention that they don’t provide hotlinks to individual posts)? Sometimes, the closing “>” will show up as “>” (the HTML code for that all-important symbol), sometimes it will properly trigger the display of the enclosed HTML, and those changes on that same post throughout the day will trigger the “update” feature in SharpReader. Also, any links that do show up will not open properly.

(H/T – Jib over at the BBA)

Due to decades of high crime, high taxes, and high unemployment colliding with rising interest rates, Reuters is reporting houses in Detroit are routinely selling at auction for less than the average price of a new car. Realtor Ron Walraven, who had a house in a suburb of Detroit he listed at $525,000 go for $130,000 at auction, has the money quote at the end of the article – “Once we’ve seen the last person leave Michigan, then I think we’ll be able to say we’ve seen the bottom.

For those that haven’t been paying attention, Milwaukee has suffered through decades of high taxes and high unemployment. Now, we’re suffering through historically-high crime. With everybody in government other than Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker thinking that taxes aren’t high enough, there will only not be a reduction in the growth of taxes, but there will not be any solution to the unemployment crisis. Thanks to Milwaukee Mayor Tom “Milk Carton” Barrett’s refusal to acknowledge there is a crisis of crime, even those few who long for the days of the USSR won’t move in. It’s only a matter of time before Milwaukee follows the death spiral that Detroit is going through.

Revisions/extensions (7:50 pm 3/19/2007) – Bob Dohnal expands on the failure of leadership in Milwaukee. Go, read.

If you try to compete with Potawatomi’s exclusivity on gambling in Southeast Wisconsin by lavishing Jim “Craps” Doyle (WEAC/Potawatomi-For Sale) with hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations, you have the feds string you up on fraud charges.

If you try to compete with Potawatomi’s exclusivity on gambling in Southeast Wisconsin without paying off Craps, you get shut down by the Department of Administration’s Division of Gaming.