Once again, I’m only dipping a bit south of the Root River, and Stu doesn’t post much, but when he does, Ravings From A Right Wing Wacko is one hellova read.
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.
October 9, 2007
Drinking Right tonight
Well, Fred, Sean, Kevin and I can’t have all the fun. Usual time (7 pm), usual place (Papa’s Social Club, 7718 W Burleigh in Milwaukee). Be there or be nowhere.
Under-the-radar election in Oak Creek TODAY!
If you’re in Oak Creek, like me, there is an election today. The mayor and city administrator want to turn the city clerk and city treasurer from elected to appointed positions, and already managed to get the Common Council to agree. Fortunately for us taxpayers, they had to do it via the Charter Ordinance route, and enough of us signed petitions to force this to a referendum:
– Shall Charter Ordinance No. 12, which provides that the method of selection of the City Clerk be by appointment by the Mayor, subject to cofirmation by a majority of the members of the Common Council, be enacted?
– Shall Charter Ordinance No. 13, which provides that the method of selection of the City Treasurer be by appointment by the Mayor, subject to confirmation by a majority of the members of the Common Council, be enacted?
I recommend NO votes on both questions. The current system has served this city very well for the last 52 years. If the positions become appointments, the pay required to attract “qualified” candidates will increase substantially for no appreciable benefit.
October 7, 2007
Slight change in the Teatotaler link structure
With Bad Behavior behaving badly, I disabled it. Unfortunately, it also invited in some spammy comments, and my suite of anti-spam software does not fully-work with the default link structure. I’ve now adopted a “pretty permalink” structure.
Don’t worry; you do not have to go back through your archives to fix links to old posts. WordPress is still smart enough to recognize the /?p=x links and get them to the right page.
NFL Week 5
I guess hiding in the belly of the gubmint beast kept me alive another week (it also had a very nice side benefit; meeting the way-out-of-my-league Mary Katharine Ham), but it kept me from figuring out just how many torpedo/shell/bomb holes the USS Egg has in it. No time for that now as we steam into the mine field known as Week 5, once again using the slightly-whacked Bodog.com lines via Vegas Insider:
Chicago @ Green Bay (-3.5) – Brian Urlacher nailed it – “We stink right now.”
Detroit (+3.5) @ Washington – Counter-contra stat of the day – Detroit is 0-17 in DC.
Carolina (+3.5) @ New Orleans – Deja vu all over again; the 1996 Aints started off 0-4.
Jacksonville (-2) @ Kansas City – Make sure that cup is on; this one’s going to hurt just watching it.
Atlanta (+8.5) @ Tennessee – Too much lumber, though the Tennesseeans aren’t missing the arcade one bit.
Miami @ Houston (-6) – 5, 6, it doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t take the Deadfins until the line moves into AC voltage territory.
Seattle (+6.5) @ Pittsburgh – The FAA has issued a severe turbulence advisory over Heinz Field for all the collisions that will take place. Take the under-41.
Cleveland @ New England (-17) – We all know what happened the third time Neo met Smith.
Arizona (-4) @ St. Louis – Two quarterbacks are better than none.
New York Jets “@” New York Giants (-4) – I also talked to Jimmy Hoffa this week, and he said take the G-men.
Tampa Bay @ Indianapolis (-10) – There’s no Cadillac, so jump on this gift from the bookies. To thank them by taking even more of their money, take the over-45.5.
San Diego @ Denver (+1) – This game’s in Denver, right? Shanahan has a piss-pot full of running backs, right? So why are the voltless Bolts favored?
Baltimore (-3.5) @ San Francisco – Nothing like fresh meat in at QB to cure defensive woes.
Dallas (-11) @ Buffalo – It’s not supposed to snow in Buffalo, and Leon Lett’s been retired for umpteen years.
Staff sizes in New Hampshire
(H/T – Ian Schwartz)
Brit Hume ran down the number of staffers the Big Seven (Clinton, Edwards, Giuliani, McCain, Obama, Romney and Thompson) have in New Hampshire. Those numbers ought to tell you absolutely, positively everything you need to know about what they believe the size of government should be.
On a related note, while I won’t be updating the fundraising post that’s currently buried somewhere below until the FEC numbers come out (because there’s been too many all-but-official numbers released between Thursday and Friday), it will be very interesting to see the “burn rate”, how fast the campaigns are going through their stash. That’s something that Kevin told us to watch on Thursday. If the massive size of the Rats’ staffs in New Hampshire are any indication, they need every penny of their fundraising advantage just to keep those that hope to be suckling off the gubmint trough less than 16 months from now happy.
Doyle uses confidential student information to gin up props
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.
October 6, 2007
DAD – my react
First things first, my many thanks to Mark Block, Fred Dooley, Erik Telford, and Americans for Prosperity for this opportunity. I can now tick off a couple more items on my “must do” list. Now that I’ve done that, and gathered as much reax as I could find, it’s time to try to put my thoughts in some semblance of order, and take the long view.
It is a big shame that Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson didn’t make themselves available to the bloggers and the press, and not just because we never got sound up on Bloggers’/Press Row. I wanted to see those two, especially Thompson, operate outside the safety net of a prepared speech and expected questions. To a lesser extent, I have the same complaint about Mitt Romney, though by that time, all the “real” media and almost all the bloggers had departed the Row. While Steve (no, NOT me), Fred and Leslie would’ve put up good questions, I know I wouldn’t have. While John McCain also was not available to the bloggers/media, that was more of a question of logistics (there was no place for Bloggers’/Media Row in the Hart Building).
Speaking of those questions, while the press dominated the Q&As with Ron Paul, Sam Brownback and Mike Huckabee, the bloggers brave enough to ask questions (see above) did come up with some land mines. Paul definitely detonated one with Fred’s question (the 9th and last one).
The biggest limitation was that lack of audio up in Bloggers’ Row. Part of it was the fact that we had radio shows broadcasting live from the room all day (that’s the source of all the extraneous noise on my audio from Paul, Brownback and Huckabee), though it was never fixed or fixable. About the time I would catch up on blogging, I found myself too late for the afternoon session going on at that point. I made it worse by perpetuating the vicious cycle because the Wi-Fi didn’t make it all the way up to the room and the Mayflower charges an arm and a leg for wired access.
I mentioned it before, but I’ll mention it again; if anybody has extended audio/video from the main hall or the afternoon sessions (yes, I know all about the Defending the Dream YouTube channel), I would like it.
Enough gripes; on to the candidates. Giuliani does indeed know his audience, and knows how to destroy the clock (I’ll get back to that). Paul is a 69-percenter (and that’s on the college 70%-to-pass scale); there’s a lot that I can relate to, yet the big negatives are completely insurmountable. Brownback doesn’t quite light my fire, though his prop of choice was great. Huckabee doesn’t know the first thing about federalism, and he’s too wedded to a national sales tax. Thompson would be a runaway in an earlier time (say, 1988 or perhaps as late as 1992), but he has some baggage. If I could ignore Romney’s past (especially on health care), I could warm up to him; unfortunately, I can’t.
On to the BIG controversy, at least for the Paul-nuts – the “silencing” of their man. That’s one of the reasons why I want the extended audio/video; I want to accurately time how long everybody got. I do know that all of the candidates ran over, and that Giuliani, who went first, went over the longest.
Mitigating that is the fact that the “minor” 3 all spent time with us bloggers and the media, while the “big” 4 (including McCain) did not. Even before one adds in the 3 stations that Paul did interviews on, he got better than 20 minutes of microphone time. I wish I had been better with the mike, but I’m still learning with that new piece of equipment as I picked it up earlier in the week and didn’t have a chance to find out its limitations.
Even with the problems in Bloggers’ Row, that was a blast. I got to meet a bunch of great people, some all-too-briefly, see some pros at work (no, I’m not talking about the press in the center of the room), and find out how at least some of the candidates handle less-than-scripted questions. If I weren’t so quiet,….
Other than missing the “working” sessions (note to self; pay for the ‘Net in the room next time so you don’t burn the “working” sessions catching up on blogging), it was simply an awesome time. Fred and I even got in some sightseeing on a foggy Saturday. Saturday, though he headed back to the hotel early. I will say that 1 hour in the Air and Space Museum is not nearly enough. Those pics will be up tomorrow.
DAD reax from others
I’m back home in south suburban Milwaukee, where it is just as hot and humid as it was in DC, but where it gets lighter earlier, and the beer is less-expensive. The laptop is back on charge after offloading all the pics and audio to the desktop, so it’s time to dig up some reax from the rest of Bloggers’ Row (and probably others in my quick search for reax) before I have my own:
– Let’s start off with my roomie Fred (Dooley, not Thompson). There’s too many posts there to link to them all, so just start reading. Oh, and the Unreal One is VERY lucky that The Hammer is a good sport.
– Mary Katharine Ham had a bunch of reax. First, she wasn’t exactly impressed by Thompson (tempered a bit later in the HotAir thread on that). Next, she raised the ire of the Paulnuts by pointing out that while Ron Paul got Gong-showed off the stage after 10 minutes, he spent forever and a half on Bloggers’/Media Row. Finally, she highlights Mike Huckabee’s defense of a smoking ban in Bloggers’/Media Row.
– Jim Geraghty, who had the benefit of being in the “overflow” section and thus had audio, panned Sam Brownback and got the quote of the day from Michael Steele, ripped Huckabee for the FairTax, and was impressed by Thompson both on the main stage and in front of the Virginia contingent, with plenty of quotes from both appearances (hmmm, one would think that he’s a FredHead ;-)
– Steve from Dry Fly Politics ran with a massive live-blog, including getting Mark Block in a cheesehead. He got questions in on the Row, so he wins the “Questioner of the Day” award. He’s officially a Romney man, so it’s no surprise that his take of the Romney speech reflects that.
– Jo Egelhoff wisely left her perch immediately to my right when she found out that audio from the main stage would not be forthcoming and picked up several snippets, including a focus on Vicki McKenna.
– Bruce from Gay Patriot, who got the almost-ultimate seat between the Hammer and Fausta Wertz, started off hustling between the Row and the main room, came back in time to take some stills of Paul and Brownback on the Row, and poor-audio-quality video of Huckabee (I will point out that the room was VERY noisy at that point; so noisy that most of MKH’s video appears to not be of good-enough quality for public consumption). He wraps it up with a wrap-up, which includes an ironic group that was up the hall from us.
– Matt Lewis had the view from the Green Room, and didn’t like Thompson. Scary thing is, he linked to the TownHall version of NRE, and since I pulled SiteMeter (TH’s counter of choice), and I deep-linked to my audio files, I don’t know how many went there from him.
– Matthew of Right Angle Blog noted Rudy Giuliani was channeling French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and lamented the fact that Paul always manages to piss him off while taking a shot at the presstitutes (Matthew had a better angle to see their nose-picking ways).
– Brendan Steinhauser, who will eventually have video up, noted that there was a lot of energy, and Thompson didn’t match it.
– Fausta Wertz (how I missed meeting her I’ll never know, or is it just my memory failing me?) takes some serious whacks at Paul Krugman with the rest of us at the summit as the bats.
– David Weigel found that the most-positive people in the crowd, at least in the day session, were Paul-nuts.
– SWAC Girl made a long drive, but got there in time to cover the White House briefing (Fred was scheduled, but due to a delay in check-in, he was unable to make it). She was impressed by Giuliani and Romney, and less-than-thrilled with Thompson.
– Rob Port grabbed his camera and had the pic of the day (you can go and click for it; I won’t spoil the surprise), and noted that McCain was a bit tired. He put up so many posts about Day 2 that I’ll just say look for the stuff with the “Defending the American Dream Summit” title.
– Added 7:45 am 10/7/2007 –
– Jawa Ragnar Danneskjold was somewhere in the fold, and was happy with Giuliani and Thopmson, as well as most of the fiscal portion of Paul’s speech, and was less-than-impressed with Brownback and Huckabee.
– enamored by Giuliani, and not so much by Thompson.
– Chief of Freedom Dogs got a connection in the main room and live-blogged from there.
If I missed anybody, pipe up, please. I’m especially looking for “independent” audio/video from the main room for the day sessions (they never did get the audio into Bloggers’ Row).
Thanks, Steve
Thanks, Steve, for letting me liveblog the Americans for Prosperity “Defending the Dream” conference with you here on NRE.
It was great to meet you, Fred from Real Debate Wisconsin, Jo from Fox Politics, Jim from NRO’s Campaign Spot, Bruce from The Gay Patriot, Jason from Citizen Watchdogs, and many more.
If you–or any other Wisconsin bloggers, of any political persuasion–would like to drop by our office in Madison and get some hand’s on coaching on how to file an open records request, just shoot us an email.
October 5, 2007
Romney blew me away
I’m on one of the “rented” laptops since mine is upstairs, so I won’t have audio for you until probably tomorrow, and long after AFP has it up on their YouTube channel, but Fred (Dooley, not Thompson) had the same reaction. Still can’t necessarily say I would vote for him, but his stock definitely went up in my book.
Revisions/extensions (6:22 pm 10/6/2007) – My crappy audio (from the far corner of the room, which made my decision to not try to shoot video a good one) is here, while AFP’s video has long since been up (part 1/part 2).
Free Paul Jacob
My friend Paul Jacob is here at the AFP Summit, doing interviews with reporters. The Free Paul Jacob website is central intelligence on this story–it’ll be around for a year or more as Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson tries to put Paul behind bars for 10 years.
See also Free Paul Jacob on Ballotpedia, and an article about the Oklahoma 3.
Wisconsin doesn’t have the right of citizen initiative as a state (although we do have the right of recall), but it is the source of the Frami v Ponto decision from federal judge Barbara Crabb in 2003, where she ruled against an attempt by Wisconsin election officials to kick a candidate off the ballot because some of his signatures were collected by out-of-state petitioners. She said the law was an unconstitutional abridgement of the free speech rights of both the petition circulator and the candidate.
Roll change – migratory edition
Doc has moved The Autopsy off of Blogger and onto WordPress.com. While heading to the old address in your browser will get you to the new place, your feeds won’t change automatically. Please make sure you change them.
Videos are starting to pop up…
AFP has their channel up, and Mary Katharine crashed Fred’s appearance before the Virginia delegation. There will almost certainly be more out there.
Thursday night/Bloggers’ Row audio
The Bloggers’ Row quality is not particularily good because there was simply so much noise. With that bit of warning, here’s some audio:
– John McCain’s speech Thursday night
– Jim DeMint’s speech Thursday night
– Ron Paul’s appearance before Bloggers’/Media Row
– Sam Brownback’s and Mike Huckabee’s appearances before Bloggers’/Media Row (sorry about the combining, Huckabee came up right after Brownback, so I didn’t have time to stop recording.
Phil Kerpen of Americans for Prosperity tells us about taxpayer-funded lobbying
Nan, a new blogger at the Freedom Works blog and I are sitting here, getting ready to blog-interview Phil Kerpen of Americans for Prosperity.
Nan is adorable and young but I’ll try to be nice to her anyway.
ME: Phil, tell us about your priorities at AFP.
PHIL: At the federal level, our majority priority is to win this fight against the disgraceful earmarks we’ve been fighting for several years, and address institutional issues such as taxpayer-funded lobbying.
NAN: What do you mean by taxpayer-funded lobbying?
PHIL: Well, the forces of big government often use our own tax dollars to hire lobbyists to lobby for higher taxes and higher spending. We’ve seen an explosion in recent years of local governments hiring lobbyists to go to state capitols and Washington, DC, to lobby for higher taxes and spending. As taxpayers, we’re paying them to work against our interests and for higher government. Most taxpayers don’t even know that’s what’s going on.
ME: How does AFP plan to promote awareness of this issue?
PHIL: In March 2007, we did a public relations campaign around the time of the NCAA basketball tournament. We highlighted the fact that lobbyists for public universities could provide free tickets to the basketball tournament, free roundtrip airfare and other goodies to legislators. The University of Florida has a president’s box that provides deluxe seating and treatment to legislators. [The university] claims that because they don’t charge for these tickets, they actually have no value.
The great thing about AFP is that we already have hundreds of thousands of people that we have already trained to be activists, so when we work on an issue like this, and can get the facts and information to them, they are ready to engage with the issue at the state and federal level.
NAN: What has your role been in this event?
PHIL: I helped book speakers–Giuliani and McCain–and I’m moderating the 4:00 panel on policy issues.
ME: Well, then, Phil, are you actually having any fun and if so, please tell us about that.
PHIL: Oh, I’m having a ball. I love seeing the ordinary people from all over America, the energy in the room this morning, and the real excitement about bedrock issues of fiscal accountability that are often disregarded. I’m just really excited to see it.
John Fund rocks
Just got back from listening to John Fund, and he’s very good. Stupid me didn’t take the recorder down, so I don’t have any juicy quotes of red meat for you. I’m sure somebody else will have them.
Now, do I go to the entertainment industry seminar or the impact leggies one? The latter features Leah Vukmir from Wauwatosa. There’s also the Students for Prosperty run by Mark Block, but since I’m a bit beyond college years,….
Jason Moore, Captain Watchdog, straight from Odessa, Texas
I’m sitting here with “Captain Watchdog”, Jason Moore, a bricklayer and political activist from Odessa, Texas. Let’s hear what Jason has to say about citizen engagement and Americans for Prosperity.
ME: Jason, why are you here?
JASON: It’s time that big government politicians hear from normal people, not government trough junkies.
ME: Tell me a little bit about what you do back in Odessa?
JASON: I mostly watch taxing entities (city councils, school districts, county government) in the Permian Basin–the Odessa/Midland area of west Texas. Our motto is, “We Bark of Behalf on the Taxpayer”. We do a weekly radio show and post regular updates on the Citizen Watchdogs website.
ME: Tell me about your relationship with Americans for Prosperity.
JASON: I could not do what I do without AFP. They introduced me into the political system back when I didn’t know anything or anybody. They showed me by example and helped me find effective ways to communicate with my legislators.
ME: What goals do you have in the coming year?
JASON: To continue to change the language government officials use to communicate with taxpayers. It needs to be more straightforward and simple. Secondly, to educate taxpayers about what the proper role of government is. One of the things I always say is, you can’t demand government do more and more, and expect to pay less and less in taxes.
ME: What’s the most interesting event you’ve attended here at the Summit?
JASON: The rally yesterday on the Capitol Steps was powerful. It put a face on regular taxpayers and it put real bodies in Washington to show Washington politicians we mean business. We’re ramping up, and we’re not going to go away. I think before they relied on the meet, greet and retreat strategy. That’s not going to work again. Fiscal conservatives have to stay in the game. It requires daily vigilance.
Thank you, Jason.
A few more “random” pics
The beautiful and talented Michigan contingent
The Capitol building
The entrance to Paul Ryan’s office (dummy me didn’t take pics inside, but the decorations, such as they are, are Wisconsin products and knick-knacks)
Just another reason why gubmint is so damned expensive; the Supreme Court has its own police force
Home of the Lawgivers-In-Black, aka Supreme Court
John Thune opening up last night’s session
John McCain hammering home the need for no pork
Jim DeMint concluding the theme of the night
The Washington Monument (from the Capitol end of Pennsylvania Avenue)
Vicki McKenna interviews Mark Block in Bloggers’ Row
Mary Katharine Ham blogging away
Leah Vukmir and Jo Egelhoff talk
Interview with Al Parinello of “Preserve the American Dream”
Al Parinello of Old Tappan, New Jersey is standing across from me. He’s been blogging at Preserve the American Dream since March 2007. He’s already done over 40 radio interviews because of his blog. It must be the controversial nature of his subject: rich people as a despised minority.
ME: Al, what’s the story behind your blog?
AL: Very simple. I went out to acquire the American dream, I worked hard, I did it and I became rich. And then I became the enemy. That doesn’t make any sense to me. So, I started fighting back.
ME: When you say fighting back, can you elaborate?
AL: The concept of the website was born after paying close to $2 million in taxes on a business I sold. The state of New Jersey requested another payment. This time they wanted twenty cents more. But, they also wanted close to a thousand dollars in interest on that twenty cents. I realized there is a dual system of taxation. Those who earn large sums of money automatically become demonized. That’s how I got started.
ME: What’s the most fun you’ve had with your blog?
AL: Being invited on Neil Cavuto’s show. We received over 25,000 hits to the blog in one night.
ME: Should other folks start blogs or…. just read yours?
AL: You should only start a blog if you have NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE DOING. If you know too much, you are sure to fail.
Thank you, Al.
I should say that Al and his great wealth are not typical of the attendees at this summit. The typical person here is someone like Jason Moore of Citizen Watchdogs in Odessa, Texas.
Ah-ble-ble-ble-ble…
That’s all, folks, at least from Bloggers’ Row. I might be able to get some more stuff up later this afternoon, but it’s networking time.
No Fred
DAMMIT!
He will be doing the Virginia luncheon, but not Bloggers’ Row.
Sean, you got some ‘splainin’ to do.
Fred Thompson on the stage
Still can’t get the audio on the main Bloggers’ Row, but he’s there. Hopefully he won’t pull a Rudy and avoid us.
More good news/bad news
Bad news – We’re missing John Stossel. He just showed a Trabant, the embarrassment of (East) German engineering.
Good news – Food has just arrived in Bloggers’ Row.
Concrete Bob
Blogger Concrete Bob, who also writes the DC Protest Blog is sitting next to me. I’d ask him a question except that Vicki McKenna is doing a riff for her WISN 1130 talk show that commands attention.
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