Nice job by Michael Horne at MilwaukeeWorld of picking up the police report on the recent traffic stop of State Senator Tim Carpenter:

They had observed the vehicle driving on the shoulder for half mile or so andthought it struck the median wall. I observed the vehicle SE CTH F LL. The driver of the vehicle leaned to the right and totally disappear from sight on two occasions. During these times he deviated and came near to striking vehicles around him. The callers were trying to box him in, but he got around them. I activated lts and siren. Vehicle stopped RS at Golf Rd. WI DL going to Chicago for art exhibit that closes at 5 and needed his I-Pass and was looking for it and his cell fell and he had to look for that and there were other items on the passenger side he was trying to organize.

“He was doing everything but driving the car.”

Now we know why Democrats oppose having to show your driver\’s license to vote. By the end of the year, none of them will have one.

Washington (AP) – The U.S. Senate took a dramatic turn today as a lunchtime Taco Bell run in Senator Russ Feingold\’s car was poisoned by a toxic anal cloud. It is still unclear who released the rancid fart, with Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) riding shotgun and Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) and Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) in the back seat.

\”Whoever is responsible for that atrocity should be held accountable,\” said Feingold, as he took a bite of his steak Grilled Stuft Burrito. Feingold immediately had his staff look into whether a large intestine has been ever been censured. It only appears that Senator Jacob Welsh Miller\’s beard was censured in 1802 for accepting numerous bribes.

Unnamed sources close to the situation have reported that Obama is most likely the responsible party. However, no senator was willing to finger the freshman senator from Illinois as the culprit. \”If we blamed him, he\’d just play the race card,\” said Lautenberg. \”What he needs to do is play the \’race to the bathroom\’ card, because it smells like a woodchuck died in his colon,\” added Lautenberg.

\”It was totally Obama,\” said Landrieu, who immediately phoned in a report of Centox Nerve Gas to the Department of Homeland Security. When told that Centox gas only existed on the popular television show \”24,\” Landrieu immediately suspected Obama. \”I saw him giggling back in the corner while he pulled his shirt over his nose,\” she said.

It appears that Obama was invoking a little-known legislative maneuver known as \”hot boxing,\” in which a legislator rolls all the windows of the car up before flatulence occurs. This tactic, also known as the \”Dutch oven,\” apparently was first employed by Senator Henry Clay in 1830, which earned him the nickname \”Old Rotten Ass.\”

Republicans immediately pounced on the revelation, with Sam Brownback (R-KS) relating an unfortunate recent encounter with Obama. \”We were working late one night, and he tried to give me a cup of \’F\’\”, said Brownback, referring to a little-known tactic where the perpetrator \”cups\” a fart in their hand and delivers it directly to the face of the victim. Brownback claims he got his revenge the next day when he rubbed Crisco on Obama\’s office doorknob, followed by passing a bill declaring Illinois \”Kansas\’ bitch.\”

Hearings are set to begin on the controversy in May.

Welcome to the world of cyberspace, where things might not always be what they seem. At least I hope that\’s the case with a comment that I received on this post from last Friday.

The post, entitled \”MPS Boys Score #1 in Nation on Female Anatomy Tests,\” was an attempt to poke fun at the ridiculous new program in Milwaukee Public Schools that will provide free wireless internet to students and teachers in their homes. The picture accompanying the post featured two African-American boys doing what young boys of any color would do with free internet – looking at salacious websites.

It appears that \”Art Hackett\” had a problem with the post. In his comment, he wrote:

Warning: Severe rant ahead.

In my home state of Texas a dummied up photo like this would be the product of someone else who remained anonymous. Except they would hide under a pointy white hood instead of a sock puppet. The goal in that case would have been to get these two boys lynched. I presume your target is a school board member, the head of the state teacher\’s union, or maybe some education professor. Lord knows the Milwaukee Public Schools have problems. But people of all political stripes have been trying to fix those problems with some success. But I\’ve been looking at this photo for three days now and I just couldn\’t stomach it any longer.

Art Hackett 04.23.06 – 6:05 pm #

Art Hackett, as none of you know, is a \”reporter\” who has worked for Wisconsin Public Television for 24 years, according to his bio. Now this being the internet, I have no idea whether it was actually Art Hackett who posted that comment or not. It\’s perfectly possible that it\’s someone with a grudge against Hackett trying to provoke me into going nuclear on him. I don\’t really know, but I\’m actually willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he wouldn\’t post something so offensively stupid.

But for argument\’s sake, let\’s say Art Hackett really is that detached from reality. Let\’s say that he thinks coming after me for a completely inoffensive, race-neutral joke post is more important than actually taking on the difficult issues that are killing MPS, like fatherless homes and gang violence.

First of all, someone needs to tell Hackett that MPS is 60% African-American, 20% Hispanic, and only about 16% caucasian. If he ever drove his little Prius to Milwaukee, he might know that. The truly strange thing would have been if I tried to represent typical MPS boys by using a picture of white kids, which apparently would have been just okay with him. How dare I ascribe the same characteristics to black kids that are inherent in every white kid? (I used to be a white kid; I know.)

Secondly, the post itself makes no mention of race, and ridicules the policy, not the students. When an idiotic policy to spend a half a million dollars in MPS to give students free internet, it doesn\’t hurt white kids. It hurts minority kids, who, given the abysmal graduation rate in MPS, seem to need all the classroom resources they can get. But I guess the fact that I was advocating for a change to help African-American kids get a better hands-on education seems to Hackett that I was advocating their \”lynching.\”

Hackett, of course, is one of these lefties who is all for an honest debate on race until an honest debate actually occurs, in which case you\’re a KKK member if you\’re not on his side. He\’s the type of guy who advocates for a color blind society, but sees race in everything. It makes him sleep better on his little publicly-funded pillow when he thinks he has the answers to racial inequity, when centuries of our best thinkers haven\’t been able to come up with workable solutions. Isn\’t it funny that you can be fired for being a racist, but get to keep your cozy public job when you go around falsely accusing people of being racists?

So I apologize if Hackett can\’t \”stomach\” pictures of black people. Surely, he sent an angry e-mail to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel just today when they chose to run a picture of a 9-year old African-American student in an article about school choice.

That is, of course, if it is Art Hackett. I guess we\’ll soon find out.

In the interest of helping Hackett overcome his fear of pictures of black people, I have decided to perform a public service and post a sample photo of one of my favorites.

UPDATE: It appears that Xoff has bought into this nonsense, too. Let\’s just give all the lefties their sensitivity award and be done with it.

I also appreciate Dan Knauss\’ spirited opposition to interracial relationships, as he is aware of \”the history of fear and violence among white people incensed by any remotely sexual interest a black male might have in a white female.\” I should probably call my African-American brother in law and tell him that he and my sister shouldn\’t go out in public together because it might feed into a stereotype of dominant black sexuality. Maybe I should tell my biracial nephew that he\’s the product of a relationship that offends sensitive liberals and feeds the hatred of bigots.

Of course, my choice of picture was completely arbitrary. Had I chosen a black woman, I would be accused of portraying black women in a negative light. Of course, he didn\’t think my post about Russ Feingold boning Geena Davis was all that objectionable when he linked to it a couple of months ago (an it was, by any standard, more objectionable.)

Completely wasted this weekend. Mostly dicking around with my guitar.

I am a terrible guitar player. Every now and then I pick it up, record about 10 little bits and pieces (never a whole song), then put it down for a few weeks. All of these pieces of songs will remain on my hard drive until I die, at which time they will be uncovered and embarrass me from the grave.

If you wish to torture your senses, feel free to listen here and here. Couple of mess-ups, but I generally think of these things, record them 5 minutes later, then never listen to them again. Song title suggestions are welcome.

I also watched \”Dog Day Afternoon\” on Friday night, since these are the important details about my life that you absolutely must know. Seemed topical, since Pacino\’s character invokes the Attica prison riots (where police and corrections officers killed 40 inmates) to turn the crowd against the police on the scene. Seems to mirror the anti-cop sentiment in Milwaukee these days with the Jude beating verdict.

Hope everyone enjoys their Easter weekend, and let\’s all pray for good weather and a couple of Brewers wins.

In the words of Rick James:

Way back in February when the new Taxpayers Protection Amendment was introduced, we all saw a lot of the usual press releases fly back and forth. Tax and business groups supported the new amendment, while groups that actually spend tax money uniformly lined up against it.

But there was one release in particular that caught my eye for its stunning hyperbole. It was written by Kenosha County lobbyist Michael Serpe, and contained some mind-numbing passages such as:

The “hard working families” of Wisconsin are very capably represented by their local units of government, who deliver the services the families want while balancing their budgets under the rules of finance imposed by their rich uncles and aunts in faraway capitals. Now the rich uncles and aunts who have soiled their own balance sheets so shamefully are going to get into their big limousines and drive to see us at our kitchen tables and deliver us from our balanced budgets and efficient ways of life…

With this amendment, its authors and supporters have simply washed their hands of their responsibilities under the law. They have said they are no longer capable of making the tough decisions. They have said they are no longer relevant when it comes to finance. They have said that they\’re not up to the task. Pontius Pilate would be proud.

Michael J. Serpe
Administrative Assistant/Lobbyist
Kenosha County Executive\’s Office
1010 56th Street
Kenosha, WI 53140
Telephone 262-653-2831
Facsimile 262-653-2817
Email mserpe@execpc.com
\”The ultimate test of what a truth means is the conduct it dictates or inspires.\”
William James

So we get it. Apparently, enacting TPA is akin to the death of Christ. Very appropriate with Easter coming. And for those counting, that\’s a 10-line signature. He clearly paid more attention to writing his own description than he did in 9th grade creative writing class.

Reasonable people can, and do, disagree about the TPA. But those that don\’t like it often make constructive comments or suggestions, rather than throwing a fit with all the coherence of a junior high breakup letter. So if Kenosha County is having trouble making its budgets, I can think of one place you can start to save money.

But what puzzles me is why the Kenosha County Executive would allow himself to be represented by such foolishness. Here you have someone that is actually doing your cause more harm than good complaining that local governments don\’t have enough money. At the same time, Michael J. Serpe is:

1. Arguing that local governments don\’t have enough money, and;
2. Proving that Kenosha County has enough money to employ a complete buffoon.

Anybody catch the irony there? He truly is living, breathing government waste.

The state keeps a database of what bills lobbyists are interested in and what positions various groups take on those bills. Occasionally, a lobbyist will register a short snippet to explain their position on a bill. So I went to Kenosha County\’s Ethics Board page to see what Michael J. Serpe has been up to. I found a gold mine of smug, self-congratulatory comments that must have just pleased Serpe to no end to register. Among them:

2005 AB 49, 1/27/2005: Would be more likely to look favorably on this usurpation of local control if the minimum wage as set by the state bore some actual resemblence to a living wage.

2005 AB 509, 1/12/2006: Isn\’t it about time that local units of government enjoyed the same treatment as the state?

2005 AB 756, 10/13/2005: What don\’t the authors understand about 2005 Act 40? And in urban counties, guess where the guests in our jails come from?

2005 AB 902, 12/29/2005: Don\’t we have better things to do?

2005 AB 1156, 4/5/2006: Why are the sponsor\’s [sic] so hell bent for leather to restrict local government\’s efforts to take care of their own business?

2005 AJR 77 (TPA) 2/14/2006: A trainwreck.

2005 SB 564, 2/9/2006: The bill gets close to accusing clerks of inappropriate behavior, and that\’s really inappropriate.

The only ones not laughing are the Kenosha taxpayers, who pay the salary of this clown to fight to keep their taxes high. They actually pay this guy to hurt their cause at the State Capitol. Message to the Kenosha County Executive – you\’d do just fine under TPA if you\’d just get rid of dead weight lobbyists that are a little too secure in their jobs.

Madison… Today a group of five-year-old future smokers rallied at city hall to protest the city\’s draconian anti-smoking policy. \”When I grow up and start a three pack a day habit, I want to be able to eat wherever I want,\” said Elijah Stevens, a kindergartener. \”I mean, I lit up at Chucky Cheese the other day and they got all up in my grill,\” said Stevens.

Madison\’s ordinance, passed several months ago, forbids anyone in a restaurant or a bar from smoking, using chewing tobacco, saying the word \”cigarette\” out loud, or dressing like the Marlboro Man (specifically for the Rainbow Room). \”People need to be protected from other people that are partaking in a perfectly legal activity on private property,\” said Mayor Dave Cieslewicz. \”It\’s not like people actually have a choice of what restaurants in which to eat,\” said Cieslewicz, chowing down on his government-issued Plazaburger.

\”Mommy said there\’s nothing like going to the bars, getting hammered and smoking like a chimney when she\’s picking up men,\” said Stacy Murray, who has never met her father. \”She says lighting up a cigarette at a bar is a great conversation starter,\” said Murray, noting that such \”conversations\” have led to six brothers and sisters from her leathery mother.

Emily Anderson, 5, said she is looking forward to entering Marlboro\’s \”Nico-Teen\” program, which teaches pre-teens to be responsible smokers. \”Nothing is more important than filling your young healthy lungs up with thick black tar in a responsible way,\” said Anderson while cleaning her pistol.

Recently, children\’s programming has come under criticism for glorifying smoking. PBS has seen its taxpayer funding drop, so they have had to find funds elsewhere. This explains why Snuffleupagus was recently seen puffing on a Newport and The Count was counting down the days before he died of lung cancer.

Stevens said he was close to collecting enough camel cash for a \”Tracheotomy Elmo.\”

I hadn\’t planned on writing anything regarding immigration, but today\’s column in the Wisconsin State Journal by Susan Lampert Smith really sets a new low for pandering. In it, she tells the tale of some guy she probably just met at the \”Day Without Latinos\” march, who she probably never would have given a second thought to on any other day. But given her chance to suck up to illegal immigrants, she jumped at the chance to use this guy as her \”cause of the day.\”

Here\’s how he got to America:

At age 16, without telling his parents, he got on a bus and started north. At Nogales, on the Arizona border, he followed a group of immigrants and found himself in a store on the U.S. side of the line.

Somehow, I can\’t remember the last time, I just \”got on a bus\” and \”found myself\” in Guadalajara. In fact, this guy knowingly and consciously broke the law. In fact, he broke it at the expense of every one of his fellow countrymen that work their tails off to gain legal citizenship in America.

I would love Susan Lampert Smith to be on my side if I ever cheated on my wife (punishable by death, by the way – trust me, capital punishment exists in the York household). I imagine her column would look like this:

Without telling his wife, Dennis got on a bus and went to Pizzeria Uno. After a couple of drinks, he found himself in a waitress.

Doesn\’t sound too bad, huh?

Lampert Smith goes on:

His dream would be to travel, to learn about other cultures and work as a photographer.

Oh yeah? I have a great place for him to travel. How about Mexico?

I know, because this guy is such a stand up citizen, it means they all are. I\’m sure he was a straight A student and was someday going to cure some horribe illness like Chronic Anal Leakage (and trust me, I\’m rooting for him to hurry up with that one.) How fortunate that Susan Lampert Smith didn\’t just happen to run into a guy who beats his girlfriend with whom he has 3 illegitimate kids. I\’m sure that guy totally would have made it into her column.

I\’m not even on the far end of the spectrum with regards to illegal immigration. I understand a lot of the meals at restaurants I eat are inexpensive because the dishwashers might be paid in cash. Illegal immigrants obviously fill a need where cheap labor is necessary. But they are illegal, and I agree with proposals that would give them a drop dead date to file their papers or go back to their country of origin.

By the way, I have a theory that illegal immigrants are much better cooks than legal immigrants. Think about it – they are literally cooking for their lives. If their beans and rice stink, they could be on a bus back to their hometown. Nothing like chimichangas with a side of desperation. Delicious.

Anyway, Rich Lowry at the National Review made a great point in a column today, when he said:

Democrats opposed the ratification of the Central America Free Trade Agreement last year for fear that it would undercut American workers made to compete with cheap Latin American labor. The problem the Democrats must have had with this effect on American workers was that it was too indirect. The party now favors importing lots of that same cheap Latin American labor directly into the United States.

I would actually favor a proposal to grant amnesty to all 11 million illegal immigrants, in exchange for exporting 11 million people of my choosing. Among those people, would be:

1. Hippies

2. People who ride their bikes to work (A.K.A – \”The Spandex Mafia\”)

3. George Clooney

4. People who when a new cash register opens up and the clerk says \”who\’s next,\” walk from the BACK of the previous line and check out, even though it\’s obvious you had been waiting for 15 minutes.

5. Smelly Europeans who think they can do all the cool things white people can do just because they look like us. You can\’t trust anyone from a country that didn\’t exist when Milli Vanilli won a grammy.

6. The creator of \”Girls Gone Wild\” (but leave the girls).

7. Anyone considering selling drugs to my daughter in the future (if they don\’t give us a family discount).

8. Dr. 90210.

Even swap. Whaddya say?

SIDE NOTE: Sorry this got so long – it appears I have oral leakage, as well.

…which is exactly why I was obligated to post it.

Sent to me by a lefty pal, by the way, who should be ashamed of himself for peddling such smut.

I generally detest people who give themselves their own nicknames, so was intrigued when Rep. Frank Lasee began calling himself the \”father of TABOR\” in Wisconsin (among other things).

So my question is this: Do I get a nickname for my help in killing the tax amendment? If I do, I prefer:

\”The TABORtionist\”

High comedy, folks.

Even though I\’ve been off the market for a while now, I still think I can offer the kids some dating advice from time to time.

On Friday after work I ventured to the Shorewood Hills Copps to get some hot sauce. (It\’s a long story – I was caught on Thursday with a plate of chicken wings and no hot sauce, and I threw a fit. That fit led me to try to fry the wings, and I almost burned my house down.) And let me tell you, single guys, the Shorewood Hills Copps on Fridays are a gold mine. You would be well advised to wait until Friday to do your shopping.

So I figure you could employ a couple of different strategies here:

Strategy 1: Get a cart and put a bottle of wine, a baguette, and some flowers in it, and just walk around the store nodding at women. This signals that you already have a girlfriend, which turns you into a walking birdfeeder for women. If they think you are already attached, then it means that at least someone can tolerate you and you likely aren\’t a serial killer (or anonymous blogger). If a woman can stand you, that puts you in the top, like 8% of all men. Of course you don\’t actually buy any of the crap in your cart, you just put it all back when you\’re done making the \”pimp daddy power lap\” through the store.

Of course, if this strategy is successful, you will need a nimble back story about why you don\’t actually have a girlfriend. Something better than \”she was eaten by hyenas\” or \”she speaks to me from the beyond.\”

Strategy 2: Fill your cart with complete garbage, like pizza rolls, hot pockets, chips, Count Chocula, and beer. This is the \”cry for help\” strategy – it shows that you are completely pathetic, but you are also a diamond in the rough. Just walk through the aisles with an \”all of these different flavors of potato chips are confusing me\” look. Any man that eats nothing but junk food is just begging for a woman to come into their lives and mold them into a lovin\’ machine. You\’re like the sad puppy at the kennel just waiting to love someone. And trust me, there\’s no shortage of women anxiously awaiting the chance to tell you what to do every minute of your life.

This strategy is best employed by those not looking for a long term relationship, or those looking for a glimpse of what marriage is like.

Strategy 3: Load your cart up with \”the ultimate party pack\” – a box of condoms, two 40 ounce bottles of Mickey\’s malt liquor, and a pack of Hall\’s mentholyptus cough drops (don\’t ask – an old fraternity joke. A Google search will give you what you need). This is known as the \”swinging for the fences\” strategy, as any woman that finds this collection of sundries attractive is guaranteed to be wearing one of your t-shirts and eating cocoa puffs in your apartment at 3 AM. Of course, you can\’t go to her house, as it is most likely a meth lab. However, there is a 98% chance you will strike out (but that 2% – hold on, daddy!). Do not expect to ever see this woman again, unless it is on \”Madison\’s Most Wanted\” on the City Channel. Best to schedule an appointment at the UW Health clinic before you even go to Copps. And frame the receipt.

So go to work, guys. I\’m telling you, it\’s worth the trip. And if all of the above fail, just give Jenna a call.

\”Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball.\”
Jacques Barzun (American Historian, 1907 – )

The Brewers are 5-0. Let me type that again, in case I am hallucinating. The Brewers are 5-0. Their magic number: 157.

This puts me in a very odd place. As a Brewer fan, I have become so accustomed to self pity and loathing, that I\’m not sure exactly how to react to the Brewers actually having a pulse. Nirvana has a song that has the refrain \”I miss the comfort in being sad.\” That is actually how I feel – my world doesn\’t make any sense anymore. Next thing you know, George Clooney will show some humility, Michael Moore will be spotted eating a salad, and there will be an oscar-winning movie about gay cowboys.

Wait, that last one happened?

In order to return to my comfort zone, I have to complain about one thing. How un-American is it for the baseball teams themselves to own the announcers that call the games? Daron Sutton seems like a fine enough guy, but his forced chipper attitude kills me. If J.J. Hardy ever turned an unassisted triple play, he might spontaneously combust in an orgasmic tornado. Think Hardy ever gets sick of Sutton asking him to join him for a drink in his hot tub after every game?

On opening day, Prince Fielder took the prestigious \”golden sobrero,\” going 0-for-4 with four strikeouts. Sutton\’s reaction? \”Prince will be happy with his day because he played great defense.\” Huh? That\’s like saying Tom DeLay will be happy with his year because he never woke up, hung over, next to Bea Arthur.

This would be like Congress owning the news networks that cover them. I mean, really – wouldn\’t Daron Sutton be a great newscaster on Al-Jazeera?

Coming to you live on Al-Jazeera, it\’s Daron Sutton with some breaking news. It appears that Saddam Hussein has just gassed about 20,000 women and children. You know what that means, people – there will be a lot less traffic on the way in to work today! Thank you, Saddam!

I realize I\’m a miserable fan, but what I want is a broadcaster that actually says what I\’m thinking during a game. I need a guy who calls the game with a noose around his neck, just waiting to jump out of the booth and end it all the next time Ben Sheets fails to get a routine bunt down.

Anyway, here are my predictions for the rest of the year:

1. Prince Fielder will get hungry and eat one of the racing sausages during the game.

2. Geoff Jenkins will break in half when wildly swinging at a two strike curveball that he misses by four feet.

3. The Devil will show up at a Brewer game to collect Brady Clark\’s soul, and replace Clark in centerfield with Heinrich Himmler. Himmler will bat .034 for the rest of the year, but still manage to be more popular than Barry Bonds.

4. Jeff Cirillo will register as a lobbyist with the state of Wisconsin. Within weeks, the legislature will pass a bill mandating Jeff Cirillo gets to play in 10% of all games this year.

5. I will take a second mortgage out on my house to be able to afford to two beers at Miller Park, which will fail to earn me Two Fisted Slobber status.

6. Paul Molitor takes \”turn back the clock\” night too literally when he runs on the field and begins snorting the left foul line.

7. Ben Sheets will spend all but two weeks on the disabled list after experiencing elbow soreness, being mauled in the parking lot by a pack of dingoes, and by contracting monkeypox after a drunken late night out with a female prairie dog.

8. Every Brewer fan will continue to quietly wonder what was so offensive about Bernie\’s chalet being a giant keg, when the team\’s name is the BREWERS.

9. American troops will eventuall find Sal Bando, who is believed to be hiding out in a cave in Hustisford.

10. Percentage of people who show up just because \”they like the sausages running\” will drop from 64% of all attendees to 61%.

11. I will lose a bar argument when I am unable to produce any evidence that Davy Lopes actually ever managed the Brewers.

12. \”Complimentary Air Rifle Night\” will prove to be the least successful promotion ever.

13. Brewers hold \”Prince Fielder for a day\” promotion, where all fans under twelve are separated from their fathers and not reunited until they hit .300 for a full season.

14. Come September Sundays, a child in Wisconsin will utter the words, \”Aw, do we have to watch the Packers? Aren\’t the Brewers on?\”

15. Final record: 162-0. And that may be pessimistic.

NOTE: This was posted minutes before Sunday\’s game started, so they may have lost before you read it. Then again, they may have won, which means Satan might want to invest in a parka.

UPDATE: Of course, my post ended up being the kiss of death (either that or I was sitting on an unlucky section of my couch), as the Crew got pasted today. I now must contradict my post and say that I don\’t feel all that great about the loss.

(Madison) A countywide manhunt is on in Dane County, as it has been learned that disgraced former Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala has burrowed his way through the wall of the Dane County Correctional facility to seek freedom.

It is believed that Chvala dug a hole through his wall and covered it up with a poster of Ed Garvey to conceal it from the guards. During his incarceration, Chvala always maintained his innocence, saying he believed it was actually \”some Mexican\” that actually was responsible for trading legislation for campaign contributions. However, Chvala claimed that at the time, he \”never got a really good look at they guy.\”

\”He was a cool guy,\” said fellow inmate \”Pooter Jones.\” Jones recalled the day they were blacktopping the roof of the Risser Justice Center, when Chvala negotiated three beers each for each of his coworkers. In return, all Chvala asked for was a $100 contribution to the campaign of Senator Russ Decker from each of the inmates.

During his time in prison, Chvala cozied up to the prison warden, who took a liking to the ex-state senator because of his deft skill at laundering money.

It is believed that Chvala will be joined in Zihuatanejo, Mexico by his best friend in prison, State Senator Gary George. Together, they will move to the Virgin Islands and begin filming a local buddy cop show where they play Culver\’s restaurant security.

As a warning, police have issued the following artist\’s rendering of Chvala. If you see him, do not attempt to approach him, as me may attempt to try to extort money from you in exchange for more Seniorcare funding.

From the head of the Wisconsin School Board Association, regarding the Taxpayer Protection Amendment:

After World War II, when totalitarianism was defeated in Germany and elsewhere, our decentralized democratic foundation was widely hailed and celebrated. Americans recognized that state control of schools in Germany was one clear aspect of that society that had gone in the wrong direction.

Yeah, it was state control of schools that was Problem Number One in Germany. Problem Number Two: the mindless slaughter of millions of Jews.

I was literally an hour from posting something on this, but that rat bastard Brian Fraley beat me to it. You win this one, Dailytakes.

SIDE NOTE: Problem Number Three in post WWII Germany? Hasselhoff.

Supporters of the Wisconsin Taxpayer Amendment are angry and confused. In concept, it\’s so simple: limit government growth to our ability to pay. They can\’t understand why it is so hard to get a Republican legislature to agree to that simple premise. Why on earth wouldn\’t a legislator support something favored by so many citizens?

Here\’s why:

When I read this news brief the other day, I thought of the Taxpayer Protection Amendment:

Waukesha – A 16-year-old Waukesha boy was injured while \”ghost riding\” and run over by his own sport utility vehicle, police said today. Jacob J. Vertcnik was traveling north on Avalon Drive near Sunnyside Drive when he put the vehicle in neutral and climbed onto the hood of a 1997 Ford Explorer, said Capt. Mike Babe. As he sat sideways on the hood, passenger Joshua T. Ferber, 18, also of Waukesha, thought the SUV was moving too fast on the incline and used his hand to hit the brakes, Babe said. Vertcnik then slid off the hood, fell in front of the vehicle and was run over.

Republicans are about to get run over by their own constitutional amendment.

When the TPA was first introduced on Valentine\’s day, Republican leadership was there to brag about how much work went into it, and how well thought out the whole thing was. In the two and a half months since those original press conferences, we have learned several things.

First, we learned the TPA didn\’t exclude the Miller Park stadium district, which would make it impossible to pay off the bonds earlier if needed. An amendment to the plan was immediately promised to take care of this.

Then, we learned that apparently sewerage districts are included under the revenue limits when they shouldn\’t be. The \”oversight\” was blamed on a \”drafting error.\” Of course, sewerage districts such as MMSD are subject to federal clean water requirements, yet would have to go to referendum to bond to meet these requirements. If a referendum failed, then the state would be obligated to pay for whatever upgrades the system needed. If that\’s the case, why would anyone ever vote for a referendum, if they know the work is going to be done and the rest of the state is going to be paying for it? So apparently we now have an amendment to fix that.

Then we learned that the TPA contradicted the current constitution by disequalizing school districts. In other words, the current constitution calls for districts \”as nearly uniform as practicable.\” The TPA would allow rich school districts to grow at a much faster rate than poor school districts, which directly contradicts the current equalization formula that is supposed to level the playing field for these districts. (I have hammered Senator Mike Ellis in the past, but he gets it exactly right with this column – except for his plan to \”fix\” school financing.)

Now we get a substitute amendment to TPA that is pitched as a \”technical\” amendment that makes the aforementioned changes for the Milwaukee Stadium district and changes the types of fees the legislature can exempt from the revenue limits. Tucked deep within this amendment, however, is this change on page 10, line 22:

(12) This section takes precedence over any other provision of this constitution that conflicts with this section.

Folks, this is getting ridiculous. That one sentence completely flips the entire system of funding schools on its head. It would turn the TPA not only into a constitutional amendment, but an \”uber-amendment\” that crushes other constitutional provisions in its way. Think of it as the Optimus Prime of constitutional provisions. The more this thing is amended, the worse it gets. (But wait – today we are told that it has another – what else? – \”drafting error,\” which will be fixed in yet another flurry of amendments. Who is drafting this thing, Stevie Wonder?)

If that amendment were enacted, we would have conflicting provisions in the state constitution. Instead of having the stones to repeal the constitutional provision guaranteeing equality of educational opportunity, the bill\’s authors have instead decided to forever disequalize school districts by tucking this line into the bill. Instead of dealing directly with the problem, it takes the easy way out and solves the problem like a third grader would. This is constitutional amendment by \”rock, paper, scissors.\”

None of these problems with the TPA, of course, are \”conservative\” or \”liberal\” problems. They just deal with the way money flows through state government and fairness in how it is spent. I know the message of the TPA is simple (keep taxes down), but the actual details are extremely problematic.

For instance, let\’s say fishing becomes big in Wisconsin one year. Fishing license applications go up 50%. I would think most people who fish are fine with their license money being spent on habitat, restocking fish, wardens, and other things related to fishing. In fact, under current law, that is how those funds have to be spent.

Under the TPA, the excess money generated by those licenses would be problematic. If the state wanted to keep that money, they would have to reduce revenues in other areas (schools, Medicaid, etc.) in order to be able to spend it on fishing. Or they could send the money back to all the state\’s taxpayers (at a substantial cost), regardless of whether they fish or not. If they didn\’t, that excess revenue would go into an emergency fund, which would then be spent somewhere down the road on roads or aids to local governments or elsewhere. Is that why you pay for a fishing license?

Essentially, whether you get Medical Assistance will depend on how many people went fishing that year or how many miles were driven by Wisconsin motorists. Whether we can build another prison will hinge on how many driver\’s licenses or parking tickets are issued. Different funds are raised by the state in different ways and used for different purposes. The TPA would put them all under the same tent and force them to all even out. The problem is, if you exempt licenses from the TPA, they would skyrocket to fund programs currently supported by general purpose revenue. So what do you do?

Again, not a conservative or liberal problem – just a problem of how money flows through the government. If more people drive next year and gas tax revenue goes up, do we stick all that money in an emergency fund to pay for schools? Do we send everyone a check for the money, whether they drive or not? These are all questions that have to be answered.

The TPA would also be a prescription for budget tricks. If revenue is restricted, there is nothing to keep the state from pushing a couple hundred millions\’ worth of school aid payments into the next biennium to match up the books. This, of course, would cause enormous structural deficits in perpetuity, as the state watched its bond rating sink. This wouldn\’t happen if we had upstanding and honest legislators, but it appears that we are working off the presumption that they are all incompetent crooks anyway, so why give them any credit now?

In the wake of this week\’s Iraq withdrawal referendums, the same people that argue for TPA are doing verbal gymnastics trying to explain
how those votes don\’t really reflect the will of Wisconsin residents. Yet when referendums are going to be held all over the state on local budgeting decisions (which the TPA would require), those same people argue that those results will be exactly reflective of the \”will of the people.\”

Trust me folks, I am on board with lower taxes and less spending. It kills me to point this stuff out. I can and will make the case repeatedly that low taxes spur economic development, which raises income and increases revenue to the state, guaranteeing that all these programs will be funded. And our taxes are too high, and not by a little bit. But if I knew about all these problems and kept them to myself, I would be doing a disservice to my eight regular readers.

Democrats have completely dropped the ball on this, too. They continue to weave the sob stories of local governments and school districts that are \”cut to the bone\” and that can\’t possibly function if you restrict their growth. This, of course, is all nonsense, and the public doesn\’t buy it. Governments will do just fine under the theory of a revenue limit, it just needs to be crafted in such a way that is workable and understandable.

Of course, the first draft of TABOR appeared seven years ago. Perhaps the eighth year of changes will be the magical year. The easiest way to take care of all of this? Elect Mark Green as Governor. And if the TPA were a stock, your best bet would be to put in a \”sell\” order.