Madison – Following the lead of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks, Governor Jim Doyle today announced some “sassy” steps to improve his administration’s sagging reputation. “I think the Bucks have shown that new uniforms can make all the difference, regardless of whether it’s the same people wearing them,” said an effusive Doyle.

A popular promotion within the Doyle administration has been “Turn Back the Clock Night,” where Doyle donors are offered the chance to re-bid for state contracts that were previously awarded to competent low bidders. For complete authenticity, Doyle’s donors are then allowed to pay the state what the contract was worth in 1983.

Doyle said the new color scheme and logo are an attempt to freshen the administration’s image and make it more appealing to younger voters. “I want to reach down to the hip younger kids that might care more about Sir Mix-a-Lot and Rubik’s cubes than they do about their government, who they think might be out of touch,” said Doyle.

In a related move, the Doyle administration obtained point guard Earl Boykins from the Denver Nuggets in exchange for the state welding contract. ESPN analyst Jay Bilas immediately ripped the move, citing welding’s tremendous upside potential and wingspan.

The administration’s official uniform has changed several times, with the most recent being the fashionable orange jumpsuit.

Some of you might remember this post from a few weeks back, where I poked fun at local news anchor Christa Dubill. I admit, I was a little nervous after posting it, since I really didn’t know anything about her – I just really picked her completely at random.

A few days back, I got an e-mail from Christa, and she totally played along with the joke. And she clearly has a superior sense of humor. So I urge both my readers to scrap those other crappy Madison stations and watch Channel 27 news exclusively. They’re the only ones that do any real investigative reporting anyway.

So cheers to Christa, the queen of Madison news.

Long time readers of mine know that I am particularly fond of ridiculing the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, the dopey left wing group that lobbies full time to restrict your free speech rights. The whole organization is led by Mike McCabe, a failed former State Assembly candidate who decided that the whole system is corrupt after he got his head handed to him in a Democratic primary for Tammy Baldwin’s old seat.

The whole purpose of the WDC is to go after special interests that have undue influence over the Legislative process. Specifically, they criticize groups that don’t disclose their contributors, yet attempt to influence policy. The media fall all over themselves to get quotes from McCabe in every article, despite the fact that his only real specialty is getting himself quoted in news stories. It’s like the State Journal needs his permission before they go to print. It’s just a matter of time before we see:

MOVIE REVIEW: McCabe gives “White Chicks” two gut-busting thumbs’ ups!

While McCabe identifies his groups as being “nonpartisan,” that notion is laughable. One needs to look no further than its board of directors to see it is composed of every lefty spending group in the state, including many groups that engage in the very political activities that WDC denounces. Whenever he criticizes “pay to play” activities, it’s always a criticism of a tax credit that helps business and economic development, but never any legislation that helps the Sierra Club or Coalition for Aging or any of his special interest buddies.

The “nonpartisan” charade was shattered forever when they released this little-read release last week, in which they denounce the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

You may wonder to yourself – just what business does a group supposedly dedicated to campaign finance reform have putting out a release on gay marriage? There are several possibilities:

1. McCabe just couldn’t help himself any longer. He knows he has the media in his pocket, and thought they would jump when he issued a release on an issue that his organization doesn’t have any relationship to.

2. Action Wisconsin, or some other gay rights group, called McCabe to enlist his services. Or maybe they threw him a few bucks to take a shot at it.

Regardless of why he did it, the irony here is obvious. You have a group (WDC) formed to denounce special interest influence in legislative issues serving as a special interest attempting to influence legislative issues. On the one hand, they denounce the exercise of free speech by some interest groups, but expect to get a free pass when they do the very same thing.

As long as the local media insist on pretending McCabe has any credibility, I will insist on proving that he does not.

Greatest title of all time, by the way. Even though it makes me sound like a self-satistfied dittohead.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel today, in a story about the New Berlin school district dropping their membership in the Wisconsin Association of School Boards:

Thomas said “the final straw” in his decision to seek an end to the district’s association with WASB was a short item published in April on the Weblog of Journal Sentinel columnists Cary Spivak and Dan Bice. Spivak and Bice wrote about bloggers ridiculing Ashley for a column he wrote in Wisconsin School News that linked support for the Taxpayer Protection Amendment and prewar Nazi Germany.

Ashley said his words in the Wisconsin School News piece have since been taken out of context. “The word Nazi never even appeared,” he said. “There were some media that misrepresented the content of that piece, which was unfortunate. . . . I wasn’t aware that an opinion column would be something that led to their decision.”

Gee, I wonder who those bloggers that Spivak and Bice were writing about could have been?

And just for the record, here’s Ashley’s quote about the TPA. Draw your own conclusion:

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.

Some lawmakers in Madison seem to have forgotten both their American history and their civics lessons as they are clearly willing to impose their will on every school district in the state of Wisconsin.

Of course we all love Brian Fraley, but what the hell was this?

From a Van Hollen for Attorney General press release announcing their new mobile headquarters:

“And while we know those who fear a J. B. victory will snicker about ‘a heavily armed recreational vehicle,’ this Mobile HQ will be a huge benefit to the campaign and to the hundreds of grassroots volunteers who will staff JB this summer,” said Fraley. “Truth be told, even we’ve made a few references to the movie Stripes, but this campaign and J.B.’s determination to work for the entire state is serious business.”

J.B. is running for what again? Aren’t there a couple references from “Meatballs” they could have thrown in?

After doing some research, I figured out what was going on at the Van Hollen headquarters.