Daniel Cody - “Left on the Lake”

Dear Wisconsin conservative bloggers,

Believe it or not, social programs like funding school breakfasts for underprivileged kids can be implemented or (gasp!) receive increased funding without “RAISING TAXES!!@#$!” which combined with “SPENDING TAXES!!@#!@” seems to be the common and predictably overblown reaction to most, if not all, of the proposals in the Governor’s State of the State address by you and your associated media outlets.

I realize it’s fun for you to get all worked up on your weblogs about words like “spending”, especially when the primary beneficiaries of the “spending” or “tax cuts” are minorities and the underprivileged, not the wealthiest citizens or large corporations that you’d prefer be on the receiving end of those two (suddenly) nasty phrases.

It’s easy to toss around the faux rage after all!

And besides, if we’re going to “spending” our “taxes” on anything in this Country, it should be on Olympic size swimming pools for Iraqi Government VIPs, not on making sure Wisconsin kids don’t have empty stomachs when they start school! Don’t worry though, because in two shakes of an elephants tail, your short attention span will have moved on to more important issues like digging into the personal lives of people and “outing” them on your weblogs for saying stupid and regrettable things to members of the U.S. military. You are the true vigilante defenders of justice!

In closing, just remember two things:

1.) Your party had control of the State legislature (not to mention the entire Federal Government) until this year when voters overwhelmingly choose Democratic candidates, so maybe they should have done something about what you call “spending” problems instead of continuously try to push fringe issues like being able to carry a concealed handgun and,

2.) government can spend money on social programs like school breakfasts and not only balance a budget while doing it, but actually produce a surplus. RE: “The 90’s”.

Love,

Dan

p.s. Please keep doing your best to seduce Sheriff Clarke into thinking he should run for Milwaukee Mayor next year.

Because what’s more fun than being around a bunch of people sitting on their laptops blogging about… blogging?

The first MyFoxMilwaukee.com Blog-a-palooza is set for Wednesday, January 31 – from 5 p.m. until 9 p.m. Mark it on your calendar. Get a sitter for the night. Do what you have to do to be a part of this experience! We’ll have live news coverage, goodies for the people who show up, prizes for bloggers and more.

Get a sitter for the kids so you can go sit on your laptop and drink coffee with other “Milwaukee bloggers”. Yikes.

Having been around this whole “blogging” thing for the better part of six years now and seeing one of these blogfests first hand, let me assure you there is nothing more narcissistic or yawn inducing than large numbers of people with laptops sitting around trying to think about clever things to write on their weblogs so the one of the other 10 people in attendance can shout across the room, “Hilarious post on your blog! I’m bored too!!”

I’ve also heard the “rumor” about Rep. Gwen Moore running against Mayor Tom Barrett next year, but that is really the extent of it, a rumor.

Not that a bad rumor would stop the Journal Sentinel from making it a front page news story of course, it’s just that they usually save the gossip, speculation, and innuendo for Sunday mornings on page A2.

At any rate, why on earth would a second term U.S. Represenative who just became part of the majority party leave that position to run the city of Milwaukee? Not that I’m saying that the position of mayor is anything other than a respectable position, it’s just that municipal positions tend to strike me as a place where you either start out your political career or end it.

One other thought. Is there ever going to be an election in the next 10 years for which Sheriff David Clarke isn’t going to try to run?

Patrick McIlheran wants to remind everyone (again 1, 2) how great things are going in Iraq despite what the “surrender first crowd” (Being opposed to the war, that must make me part of the ridiculous wingnut website term, although I think a more accurate catchphrase would be something like “never wanted to go there to begin with crowd”) thinks, things are actually just peachy in Iraq!

Let’s see: The oil industry’s taking tottering steps to recovery. A general points out that Ramadi, once bereft of cops, now has them. Breakout violence in Mosul has been quelled. A soldier points out his fellow soldiers skip TV news — since it’s so at odds with what they’re seeing. A string of Iraqi army units are killing and capturing insurgents. A bunch of al-Qaida guys are on the run or being caught. The power system’s working. Twenty hospitals are being renovated. Schools are opening. Factories are opening. Life is going on and, in many cases, improving.

Like we could forget the schools… they’re about the only benchmark of progress those on the right seem interested in. Forget an escalation in troops! Sending over 20,000 paint brushes to paint the new schools with is what will end the violence in Iraq!

Then there’s the anecdotal reference to the soldier on the ground who just isn’t seeing the violence for him/herself. The 50-100 bodies a day showing up at the morgue must be part of the mainstream media bias I guess.

I don’t have a problem with people like Mr. McIlheran pointing out the positve things happening in Iraq, it’s the “plugging my ears and saying “la la la la everything is just great in Iraq, don’t let the MSM get you down, mission accomplished freedom fries #1 USA!!!”” mentality that bothers me. If it weren’t so cold, I’d suggest people like him use our recently acquired snowdrifts to bury their heads in.

Ironically, the “real” story isn’t being told about the violence in daily Iraq by publications like the one Mr. McIlheran opines for. The “real” stories about the violence don’t make the evening news, but like this one about “The Battle for Haifa Street” by CBS reporter Lara Logan get relegated to some dark corner of the “MSM’s” website. She writes:

The story below only appeared on our CBS website and was not aired on CBS. It is a story that is largely being ignored, even though this is taking place every single day in central Baghdad, two blocks from where our office is located.

Our crew had to be pulled out because we got a call saying they were about to be killed, and on their way out, a civilian man was shot dead in front of them as they ran.

I would be very grateful if any of you have a chance to watch this story and pass the link on to as many people you know as possible. It should be seen. And people should know about this.

You can view her report below from Youtube. It’s disturbing and for reasons I’m sure only right wing community columnists at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel can explain, completely misrepresents the “real” story of peace and progress in Iraq.

…but I wouldn’t turn down the chance if anyone from the Senator’s office asked.. *cough*

Talk about timing. One day after talking about it on my weblog, one of the leading contenders for 2008 jumps onboard the universal health care bandwagon. Of course, it’s not like it’s exactly a new idea or anything, but refreshing none the less to hear it coming from “serious” candidates like Obama.

Every American should have health care coverage within six years, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama said Thursday as he set an ambitious goal soon after jumping into the 2008 presidential race.

“The time has come for universal health care in America,” Obama said at a conference of Families USA, a health care advocacy group.

“I am absolutely determined that by the end of the first term of the next president, we should have universal health care in this country,” the Illinois senator said. - AP

Sen. Scott Fitzgerald on a proposed $1.25 tax increase on cigarettes that Gov. Doyle is proposing:

“The last thing Wisconsin families can afford is another tax hike and I’m sure the people of Wisconsin can find better uses than the government for the more than $250 million the governor and Senate Democrats want to take from them”
- Senate Minority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau)

…because Wisconsin families would be the ones shouldering the cost of paying an extra $1.25 for a pack of smokes. Little Jimmy is going to have to cut back on his Hot Wheels purchases to cover the increased price for his pack of Misty 100’s!

Note to Republicans: don’t try to frame a tax increase on an acknowledged health risk like cigarettes as a “burden” to any family. It just sounds even more silly than you normally do.

We heard again from the President last night that the silver bullet cure to the health care crisis in this country is through health savings accounts, commonly known as HSA’s. Just like a savings account, you put money in on a periodic basis and use it to pay deductibles when you’re in need of health care.

The pitch is that because it’s “your” money, you’ll shop for low-cost health care, thereby reducing costs. Like most insurance pitches though, this one is completely false and  the opposite is often true: that HSA’s actually reduce cost sharing for most people.

While the President continues to pitch this type of plan as a “step to making health care affordable for more Americans”,  that just isn’t true because it does nothing to actually address the  real reason health care is so expensive in this country.

Even if you have an HSA today, the cost of health care, and thus the cost to you, continues to rise at  a meteoric rate. The fact is you just couldn’t keep plugging enough money into your “savings” away  year after year to keep up with the 10-25% increase in the cost of health care.

It’s no different than trying to keep up with making the payments on a mortgage if the interest rate climbed year after year after year. Pretty soon the bank is gonna start calling about foreclosure.

And in fact that exact scenario is playing out more and more frequently as those who rely on HSA’s for their health care are more often delinquent on their medical bills. It’s called insurance for a reason, and there’s a good reason it’s been with us throughout the course of modern civilization.

The time is coming that we’re going to have to have a serious conversation in this country about a unified health care system that provides all Americans with the treatment and care they deserve. I don’t expect that day will come while President Bush is in office, but that doesn’t mean it’s not coming.

My own Representative Gwen Moore sums up the President’s plans in his SOTU address last night about as well as I could:

“Bush has often pushed for an ownership society in America. His health care proposal is yet another example of what he means by that: You’re on your own.” -  WI Rep. Gwen Moore

…and like most reviews I’ve read this morning, they’re also asking “Where’s the beef?”

All this sounds fine, but it’s also a little like campaigning for delicious, low-fat cake. Who’s going to disagree? Greens love anything clean and renewable and have even, for the most part, come around to the virtues of nuclear power, providing strict safety standards can be maintained and someone can figure out what to do with the waste. The energy industry loves nukes and clean coal, and if they have to make a little room at the table for windmills and solar panels, well that can’t hurt too much. Plus, Bush also called for doubling the size of the nation’s strategic energy reserve, boosting oil demand by putting the government in line for a massive fill-up on the federal credit card.

What the president didn’t do after all this ambitious call to arms was put forward any serious ideas — or even any unserious ones — about how to make it happen. Remember all that talk about hydrogen cars? Get yours’yet? No, and you’re not likely to for a very long time either. - Time.com

While Time is still waiting for their future car, residents of New Orleans are still waiting for promised money (funny how that didn’t get a mention in last night’s speech), we’re still addicted to foreign oil, and I’m left holding thousands of dollars in switchgrass futures.

Toward the end of last year’s State of the Union Speech, the President had this to say:

A hopeful society comes to the aid of fellow citizens in times of suffering and emergency — and stays at it until they’re back on their feet. So far the federal government has committed $85 billion to the people of the Gulf Coast and New Orleans. We’re removing debris and repairing highways and rebuilding stronger levees. We’re providing business loans and housing assistance. Yet as we meet these immediate needs, we must also address deeper challenges that existed before the storm arrived.

In New Orleans and in other places, many of our fellow citizens have felt excluded from the promise of our country. The answer is not only temporary relief, but schools that teach every child, and job skills that bring upward mobility, and more opportunities to own a home and start a business. As we recover from a disaster, let us also work for the day when all Americans are protected by justice, equal in hope, and rich in opportunity.

That sounds nice and all until you learn that New Orleans is still a shadow of itself and still waiting for a lot of that reconstruction money the President promised a year ago.

What half hearted promises will he make tonight that we’ll be talking about next year?

I love this headline off the wires today:

“Bush speech to showcase domestic issues”

You mean he’s not going to talk about the utter failure that his Iraq policy is for 90 minutes? Color me shocked!

Maybe this year his domestic “focus” will go beyond tomorrow’s omlets and orange juice.  Anyone else remember the last time you heard about “switch grass”?

Here’s  an excellent article from The Wahington Post on how Bush pushed the escalation of troops in Iraq.

From interviews in the article, it’s clear that Bush not only pushed the surge, but that he’s distrustful of the professional military advisors around him.  It reminds me a lot of a scene from the Humphrey Bogart classic, The Caine Mutiny Court Martial.  Inside the courtroom, Bogart’s character finally snaps, retrieving a pair of steel bearings from his pocket before launching into a rant.

“He was no different than any officer in the wardroom — they were all disloyal, I tried to run the ship properly by the book but they fought me at every turn”

-Captain Queeg:  The Caine Mutiny Court Martial

Those words could just as easily been spewed by Bush, describing his brilliant strategy for success and why it hasn’t happened yet.  Much like Captain Queeg, Bush seems intent on pushing absurd strategies and tactics, viewing his generals as disloyal and defeatists.   And just like Queeg, Bush believes, despite evidence to the contrary, that there can be only one explanation for what the problem is and what the solution has to be, again despite evidence to the contrary.

Am I saying he’s insane?  Not really.  Delusional, probably.  Dangerous, you bet.  Here’s hoping that those around him are able to reel him into reality soon, before this ship we’re all aboard capsizes in the storm.