I had a question after reading this headline on CNN.com right now for an article about “Bush 3.0″:

Bush begins new push to shore up fight on terrorism, Iraq

What is this, the fourth ‘push’ now Bush made to try to ’shore up’ support for his failed policies in Iraq and in the war on terrorism? Each one has been more desperate than the last, and they’ve all had about the same effect of continued opposition to his policies.

It’s S.O.S. time for this administration and Republicans in general.

Good news for tens of thousands of children enrolled in Milwaukee Public Schools who used to start the school day hungry: MPS is rolling our free breakfast in more of it’s schools this year.

For the 2006-07 school year, a million dollars has been set aside by MPS to make breakfast available to students in more schools. Already, 97 principals out of a potential 200 have committed to meeting the few requirements of the program….

…The breakfasts will be available in either a bag or a small box, and will be accompanied by a carton of 2% milk. The meals will be delivered directly to the classroom, and children will eat them at their desks

Wisconsin has traditionally ranked dead last in participation in the National School Breakfast Program, and this should do something to turn that around on top of providing a healthy start to the day and a more productive learning environment to boot.

Doh!

The state Elections Board today told Republican gubernatorial candidate U.S. Rep. Mark Green to return $467,844 in donations from political action committees not registered in Wisconsin - money Green had transferred from his federal campaign fund in 2005.

On several 5-2 votes, the board upheld a complaint from the non-profit Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which said the Green campaign’s transfer of almost $1.3 million from his federal fund to a state fund violated several campaign-finance laws.

If Rep. Mark Green can’t be bothered to keep his own campaign’s books in order, how do you think he’d do as Governor of Wisconsin?

His response should be interesting. I’ve got him blaming “Angry partisan Democratic bloggers” with 3-2 odds.

No doubt by now you’ve heard the name John Mark Carr. The news media has been in a frenzy state since August 16th when he proclaimed that he had something to do with killing a little girl 10 years ago.

Hardly an hour went by on cable news without some sort of “Breaking News” in the case, usually a report that he’d climbed aboard an airplane or had cake for dessert on the flight.

The whole episode was seriously ridiculous stuff and tells you pretty much everything you need to know about today’s sad state of ‘journalism’ in America.

The national news media spent the better part of two weeks focused on an event that had no impact on the lives of everyday Americans. In fact, they were so focused on hyping every little detail about the story that a lot of ‘real’ news - things that you and I care about - didn’t get the kind of attention they deserve, or were just plain ignored by the national news media.

One of those stories is Iraq. You hardly hear anything about what’s going on in Iraq anymore from the media. Who knows, maybe they just don’t care anymore. Or maybe they think that Americans are tired of all the “bad news”. Either way, frivolous stories like the Carr one pushed Iraq, which was getting precious little coverage to begin with, out of the news cycle completely.

Since we all heard the name John Mark Carr for the first time, at least 35 U.S soldiers have been killed in Iraq. At least two of them from here in Wisconsin. Over one hundred more have been wounded, many seriously.

Anyone else remember after 9/11 when all the media outlets swore off “tabloid TV news” and recommitted themselves to providing coverage about the events that really mattered?

What happened to that?

We’ve had a pretty busy Summer so far, so it’s been hard to keep the pictures of Emerson updated as much as certain people would like them to be…

But I’ve been able to find some time and upload another whole album of pictures of Emerson, and you can find them at: http://dancody.org/media/Emersons_second_year/.

We had to create another album for her pictures after her birthday because the first one was just getting too hard to manage.

Enjoy!

For those who find the lack of local media coverage about the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s race appalling, come see the two Democratic candidates at tonight’s Milwaukee County Dems meeting:

Larraine McNamara-McGraw and John Chisholm, Democratic candidates for District Attorney, have agreed to a debate on Monday, August 28th at 6 pm at 500 S 84th St (the Pettit National Ice Center at State Fair Park) in the Hall of Fame Room.

The debate is expected to last about an hour, and will be followed by the regular membership meeting for the Democratic Party of Milwaukee County. Stay for the meeting and get updates from representatives the this fall’s key campaigns.

More informatin at the Milwaukee County Democrats site.

Bad news for residents of Milwaukee who were anxious to be one of America’s first major cities to have citywide Wi-Fi service: work still hasn’t started.

Last July, I noted how the project was six months behind schedule at the time, but a deal had apparently been reached between the city and Midwest Fiber Networks. That would have put the initial “test” network for the near-west side online in Fall of 2006, with the entire city online by the end of 2007.

However, I’ve been talking to MFN through their PR firm trying to get some updates on the status of the project and it doesn’t look good. Bottom line is that they’re still negotiating with the city, and there’s no timeline on those negotiations being completed. Hence, the clock still hasn’t started ticking on the six months MFN will need to build out just the “test” network.

That 6 month time frame precludes the 18 months for Wi-Fi service throughout the rest of Milwaukee. So even if work were started today, we wouldn’t be looking at completion of this project untill early 2008 at the earliest.

That’s quite a dissapointment for a project that was basically sold on the promise of making Milwaukee “first” to have citywide Wi-Fi access.

So what’s the holdup? Like I said, I’ve been in contact with their PR firm and with one of the owners/principles of Midwest Fiber Networks and received this response to my questions about the delays:

Where we have fallen short of expectations is not anticipating the
amount of time required for contract approvals. The fundamental terms
were approved by Common Council in January, but we did not prepare for
some of the detailed legal review of those terms and just how long it
would take to work through the various partners and affected parties.

Therefore, we have not started the official City Wireless build-out of
the test network yet. We continue to work in the background on the plans and installation procedures in anticipation of the larger project beginning soon. - Donna Raffaelli-Meyer

While it’s hard to not understand the frustrations in working out contacts with a city government, this is also a company who has been working with the city and it’s proceedures for years now.

The sad fact is Milwaukee is no closer to rolling out city-wide Wi-Fi access than it was almost a year ago when this deal was proposed. In the meantime, other major U.S. cities are passing Milwaukee by with their own plans to rollout citywide Wi-Fi access for their residents.

The lead in this AP article just reiterates the GOP talking points that corruption is everywhere in Washington DC, not just in the Republican side of the fence.

Corruption dogs both parties this year

Yet, take a look at this picture from the same article:

You may notice that four of the five people in that picture are Republicans. One has been convicted of selling his votes (Cunningham) and awaits sentencing, while two others (Ney & DeLay) have resigned their positions as they await varying levels of Federal indictments. Conrad Burns from Montana is also tied in with the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and awaits his fate. Rep. Alan Mollohan, the sole Democrat in that picture, is under no indictments as far as I know, and any wrongdoing he may have done was on his own and not party of a larger corruption scandal like the one plaguing the Republican party.

And that’s the difference folks which hardly makes corruption as much of an issue for Democrats as it is for Republicans: Individuals making bad choices vs. a concerted effort from a National party to sell our Democracy off to the highest crooked bidder.

Watch out Milwaukee, gubernatorial candidate Rep. Mark Green has a plan for us to stem the growing violence on our streets!

Flanked by police officers and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani in Sherman Park, Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Green said today that he will lead an all-out effort to end the “culture of crime in Milwaukee.”

In a statement issued by his campaign, Green said Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle had “turned a blind eye” to the crime problem in Milwaukee and promised a stronger effort to show that “this park, this neighborhood, these streets and every park and neighborhood do not belong to the thugs and gangsters.” JS Online

He is personally going to lead an all-out effort. Impressive until, as the Journal correctly points out, you find out that the tough talk is the extent of Mark Green’s “plan”. But Jim Doyle “turned a blind eye”!

Again, the JS correctly points out the following fact:

“In June, after an early wave of summer violence in the city, Doyle approved giving the city $500,000 to hire additional youths through a summer jobs program and $200,000 for additional police patrols. He asked the Legislature for $1 million to go to additional police overtime, though lawmakers scaled that back to $750,000.”

Hardly turning a blind eye, but then again, we’ve come to expect nothing other than inaccuracy and misleading statements from Rep. Green’s campaign thus far, this is just the latest example.

But wait! It doesn’t end there. Sensing the possibility to tie his wagon to the PR stampede, Republican Attorney General candidate J.B. Van Hollen came out in full support of Rep. Green’s “plan”:

Republican attorney general candidate J.B. Van Hollen praised Green, a U.S. representative from Green Bay, for his plan to reduce crime in Milwaukee and said the two share an approach to working with law enforcement to fight dangerous crimes in the state’s urban center.

Praise for a non-existant plan. That’s leadership and exactly the kind of person we need as Wisconsin’s “Top Cop”.

Politicizing an issue like crime to scare up votes. That’s exactly the kind of tough decisions and clear vision that have made Rep. Green such a great public servant.

It’s getting hilarious to watch the desperation that is the Wisconsin Republican party.

I came across this story yesterday which adds more fuel to the charter vs. public school debate:

Fourth-graders in traditional public schools are doing better in both reading and math than students in charter schools, the government says in a report fueling fresh debate over school choice.

Tuesday’s report said fourth-graders in regular public schools scored an average of 5.2 points better in reading than students in charter schools on the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress test. Students in traditional schools scored an average of 5.8 points better in math. - AP

I’d be interested to see if this national study would produce the same results here in Milwaukee. While there are good and bad public schools out there in both the public and charter schools, it’s interesting to see that the credo of charter schools - “Autonomy for Accountability” - may not be holding water anymore.

These kinds of findings are why it’s so important to have accountability from our schools.

If American ultra-conservative groups like the Family Research Council spent as much time on issues like helping the homeless, child poverty, affordable health care for seniors, etc.. - you know, real Chrisitan values - as they do obsessing with ‘dirty’ things like hotel pay-per-view, imagine how many people’s lives could be changed for the better in this country?

But nope. Hotel pay-per-view is apparently their #1 issue right now:

A coalition of 13 conservative groups — including the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America — took out full-page ads in some editions of USA Today earlier this month urging the Justice Department and FBI to investigate whether some of the pay-per-view movies widely available in hotels violate federal and state obscenity laws. - AP