Christian Schneider

Author, Columnist

Page 35 of 82

Rock, Chalk

April 8, 2008 / / 0 Comments

So within the same week, my sister gets home from Iraq and her alma mater, the Kansas Jayhawks, win the national championship. Not bad.

More importantly, I picked Kansas to win when I filled out my bracket, which was the only thing I managed to do right. After two rounds, I was ranked 92nd in a pool of 104 teams. With the KU win tonight, I finished a respectable 26th – although dead last among people who picked Kansas to win.

And while Derrick Rose is probably crushed at the Memphis loss tonight, just imagine how excited he\’ll be later in the year when he\’s drafted by the Bucks.

(Actually, I take that back – someone might want to make sure there aren\’t any sharp objects near him on draft night.)

Oh, and Billy Packer is still an insufferable prick. That\’s just a little bonus observation.

Running to the Phone

April 7, 2008 / / 0 Comments

Big news at the Capitol:

A toll-free hotline is now available for citizens to report fraud, waste, and mismanagement in state government. Call 1-877-FRAUD-17 or 1-877-372-8317.

(Dialing…)

\”Yes, hello? I have some waste in state government to report. I think it\’s a waste of my tax dollars to have someone sitting around all day answering the phones, pretending that the waste people call in and identify is going to make any difference in state government at all. In fact, isn\’t that why we provide every state legislator with their own 800 number? To take calls from concerned constituents?\”

\”Oh, and as long as I have you on the phone, I think the state health plan also should not cover the cost of toupees.\”

Trousers Product Review: White Castle Microwave Burgers

April 5, 2008 / / 0 Comments

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For months now, I have passed the frozen foods section of our grocery store with an eye on a product that it seems couldn\’t possibly be any good: White Castle microwavable burgers. But having put down six Whiteys sliders after a concert in Chicago a few weeks ago, I thought it was time to give them a try, if only for the sake of my own amusement.

Surprisingly, they\’re not really all that unhealthy. 17 grams of fat per two burgers, which is the same amount as one hot dog. You have to wrap a pack of two burgers in a paper towel, and microwave them for 60 seconds.

Admittedly, when I first had the idea of doing this post, I thought I was going to go into great detail about how disgusting they are. But I have to admit – they\’re actually not half bad. Perhaps the main benefit they have going for them is that the actual food they are meant to replicate is so bad to begin with. Whiteys sliders are good for a 3 AM after bar meal, but aren\’t exactly a delicacy at noon. So because the bar is so low to begin with, they actually meet it easily.

In fact, given the microwave directions, the heating is just perfect. The meat gets hot, while the bun warms up, but doesn\’t get soggy. Naturally, you\’re better off having plenty of ketchup nearby to make the taste more tolerable.

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So if you\’re looking for a 60 second snack that takes you back to the old days of getting hammered at the bars and scavenging for food (\”old days\” = \”last week\”), you could do a lot worse than White Castle frozen burgers.

Four out of five trousers.

The Voters Should Keep Speaking

April 3, 2008 / / 6 Comments

With the Supreme Court race in our rear view mirror, the usual hysterics are taking place with regard to how we select our justices. According to Jay Heck from Common Cause, \”This was the most nasty, negative, demoralizing statewide election in Wisconsin history. . . . This is about as low as you can go.\”

Consider me among those not \”demoralized.\”

The election of conservative Judge Mike Gableman has set the media on fire. Much of the reaction resembles the state being hit by a hurricane, not the state electing a conservative Supreme Court justice. The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign\’s Mike McCabe, who must have a heck of a cell phone plan with all the calls he gets from state newspapers, said \”\”Wisconsin is in the midst of a hostile takeover of its court system.\”

This article from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel goes on to quote SEVEN individuals who think we should completely overhaul our system of electing judges. Not content with just that pitch for campaign finance reform, the paper today also ran an editorial describing the Supreme Court race, titled \”Tawdry and Despicable.\”

Naturally, had Butler won, we wouldn\’t be hearing any of these calls for blowing up the system – everything from eliminating free speech to publicly funding elections to doing away with elections altogether. Everything would be golden until next year, when the balance of the Court would be up again.

But there are some interesting facts that the Journal Sentinel seems to leave out. Take, for instance, the results of the last four Wisconsin Supreme Court races:

2000: Conservative woman defeats liberal man (Sykes v. Butler)

2003: Conservative woman defeats liberal man (Roggensack v. Brunner)

2007: Conservative woman defeats liberal woman (Ziegler v. Clifford)

2008: Conservative man defeats liberal man (Gableman v. Butler)

Could it be possible that Wisconsin voters simply prefer conservative justices? Is there even a remote chance that the people who voted wanted their justices to adhere to a strict reading of state law?

In fact, it could be that all those \”scary\” ads had little to do with the race. The Sykes and Roggensack races were low-profile elections, yet the conservatives won in each case (Sykes by a nearly 2 to 1 margin).

Consider also the 2006 elections, when Republican J.B. Van Hollen won the race for Wisconsin Attorney General amid a Democratic tidal wave. How could this be? Could it be possible that voters are actually sophisticated enough to know what they want from specific elected offices? If voters knew what they were doing, that would ruin the whole fairy tale about how they are unduly influenced by campaign advertising, and how they\’re not qualified to pick judges.

Put simply, you want a conservative to keep bad people from doing things to you, but you want a liberal when you want to do things to bad people. (Oil companies, pharmaceutical companies, Dick Cheney)

Yet the state media can\’t comprehend the fact that in electing Gableman, they were only doing what they have done for the past decade – electing a conservative. It doesn\’t matter how much people spend or how much press coverage there is of the race.

Had Gableman lost the election, conservatives certainly would have been bummed out. But how many would be calling for an overhaul of the electoral system? Answer: none. When Democrats and liberals are elected, the Right lives to fight another day. Fortunately, they have enough class to refrain from insulting the will of the people.

The Constitution Gets an Extreme Makeover

April 2, 2008 / / 0 Comments

I\’m working on a couple hours of sleep, but I feel like I should say something about last night\’s elections.

First, I am positively giddy about the Frankenstein Veto Constitutional Amendment passing. As many people know (and as I have been happy to mention about 20 times), I worked for the State Senator who authored this amendment at the time she initially introduced it. And while the amendment passing with 70% of the vote makes it seem like a no-brainer, consider this: the bill\’s authors got a Democratic Senate to vote for a constitutional amendment to limit the veto authority of a governor from their own party. It\’s hard for people to understand how much of a long shot that was. But in the end, reason won out. Arguments actually carried the day. Yesterday was a day that people could truly be proud of their Legislature, both parties included.

With such a big project, there are a number of people that deserve to be thanked. First, State Senator Sheila Harsdorf for introducing and pushing for the bill. Her staffers Jack Jablonski and Matt Woebke for crafting the strategy (Jablonski was able to overcome his mental defect of being a Viking fan and actually do some great work). Senator Scott Fitzgerald and his staff, including the now-departed Mike Prentiss, who is now practicing his vigilante brand of public relations in Cincinnati. State Representatives Don Friske and Jeff Stone pushed for the bill in the Assembly, with their staffs Tim Gary and Michael Pyritz. And yes, Democratic Senators Russ Decker and Fred Risser deserve credit for standing up to their governor and passing this restriction on his power.

As for the other races, I\’m not sure what I have to say. I\’m still stunned about Mike Gableman\’s Supreme Court win. When I sort out what I think, I\’ll probably post them over at the WPRI blog.

However, the biggest win of the night was Jill Didier\’s victory as mayor of Wauwatosa. I take 100% full credit for this win, and I expect to be offered a high-level job in the Didier administration. I will just sit here and wait for my phone to ring.

….

Nothing yet…

….

UPDATE: My thoughts on the Supreme Court race are up at the WPRI Blog.
Any minute now…

For Gableman, the Work Now Begins

April 2, 2008 / / 4 Comments

As everyone knows by now, Burnett County judge Mike Gabelman beat incumbent Justice Louis Butler in a race for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court last night. Butler should have known he was in trouble when he got a call from Paula Abdul telling him he \”looked gorgeous.\”

Interestingly, the people who seem to be most stunned about Gableman\’s victory seem to be Gableman\’s own supporters. While people who backed Gableman certainly agreed with his stated judicial philosophy, he never demonstrated a grasp of the issues most important to the Court. This was due, in part to the race\’s misleading focus on criminal justice issues. It is also due to the fact that Gableman often eschewed actual debate with Butler in favor of calling him a \”judicial activist.\” In the candidates\’ final debate, Gableman answered virtually every question with the words \”judicial activism,\” rather than explaining any of his own positive philosophy. (He crossed the line the next day at the dry cleaners – when asked if he wanted extra starch, he accused the dry cleaner of legislating from the ironing board.)

Yet despite any misgivings supporters had about Gabelman\’s electability or the campaign he ran, the bottom line is that he won. So it\’s hard to argue tactics – clearly his campaign knew what they were doing. But it doesn\’t make it any less shocking that what was essentially a second-tier candidate ended up on the Supreme Court in a year that was supposed to be dominated by liberals.

So now the blueprint for winning a Supreme Court seat is pretty much set. Criminal justice, criminal justice, criminal justice. The best advice I can give Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson for her 2009 race is to get a picture of her beating a homeless crack addict with a billy club, ASAP.

As for Butler, he actually seems like a good guy. In debates he was composed, knowledgable, and personable. Yet for all of his charm, he never seemed to grasp the problems voters might have with a justice
that disregarded the plain meaning of the law as often as he did. In his final TV ad, he bragged about ruling in favor of widows of men killed in the Miller Park construction accident. He stood up for children \”hurt by unsafe products.\” (Presumably the ridiculous lead paint case.)

While it\’s wonderful that these widows and children were able to get some kind of relief, it still leaves one question: what was the law? Being a justice isn\’t about handing out Christmas presents to the aggrieved. It\’s about interpreting the statues as written by the Legislature. Certainly, I would be appreciative if Louis Butler could get me in a hot tub with Natalie Portman. But I\’m fairly sure there\’s no law authorizing such a meeting. (Mental note to self: begin lobbying Legislature for such a law.)

Voters likely saw that Butler\’s presence created a Court majority run wild. In fact, his mere presence on the Court was an affront to the voters. After Butler lost to Justice Diane Sykes by a 2-to-1 margin initially, Governor Doyle ignored the will of the electorate and appointed Butler to the bench anyway. This was the judicial equivalent of mooning the voters.

Butler is smart and capable, and his punishment will be to move to a high-class law firm and make five times as much money as he made on the Supreme Court. So while it may hurt his feelings that he lost to Fred Flintstone now, he\’ll do just fine. (In the final debate, you could see on Butler\’s face that he couldn\’t believe they got this guy to run against him.)

But now that he\’s on the Court, Gableman will have to prove that he was worthy of all the support he received. He has to display an intelligence and grasp of the issues that seemed to be lacking in his campaign. In short, he has to bloom where the voters planted him.

The Reaper At My Door

April 1, 2008 / / 0 Comments

As hour two of Sunday\’s Jens Lekman concert started, I could only think of two things: 1. Do Swedish people really dance that badly?, and 2. Where\’s the bathroom? You see, for the last week or so, I have had to \”go\” constantly.

At first, I thought this might just be a by-product of getting old. I\’ve never been in my mid-30\’s before, so how am I supposed to know how often someone that age has to pee? The rest of my body aches, why would my prostate be any different? I just accepted that I had the bladder of a 132 year-old nun and decided to move on.

\"\"I talked to another friend of mine who is the same age, and he said he was having the same problem. I hate going to the doctor, so I told him to go see a doctor and find out what I have. At the very least, I was hoping I had a tapeworm, since it\’s nice to have someone to talk to occasionally. I could buy him a little Brewer hat and take him to baseball games and such.

Finally, I relented, and today I went to see the doctor. When they asked for a urine sample, I just pulled out one of the samples that I keep in the trunk of my car. Who knows when it could have been from.

Even as I dreaded the exam which I knew was coming, there were more surprises. Apparently, for the first time in my life, my blood pressure was a little high. It wasn\’t fatally high, but I had moved out of the \”circulation of a f\’ing racehorse\” phase to which I had become accustomed. Even when I started putting on weight, I could always fall back on the fact that my veins were golden. In that respect, I was deceptively fat. Chunky but fit.

So this was really a shock to find out that the innards are starting to go. My body\’s kind of like an old Ford Pinto – a little rough on the exterior, but the engine of a Ferrari. But now my doctor was telling me my spark plugs aren\’t firing the way they used to. I attribute this to my attempt to set the world caloric intake record from the beginning of the NCAA tournament to now.

As part of the exam, they made me step on the scale. The digital number that came up was a number that had previously been unknown to me. I quickly tried to calculate the weight of my boots, belt, wallet, phone, clothes, hair gel, and sandwich I had for lunch. Even if I was carrying a bowling ball in my pants (not unlikely, incidentally), I was still about ten pounds on the scary side. So either I\’m fat or my tapeworm now weighs ten pounds.

During part of the exam, the doctor started asking some pretty personal questions. He asked if there was any blood in my stool. \”No, not accidentally,\” I said. Then things got touchy:

Him: \”Are you sexually active?\”

Me: (Fighting off urge to make a joke) \”Uhhhh, yeah.\”

Him: \”With your wife?\”

Now what the hell kind of question is that? I totally should have said, \”No, actually with your wife.\”

Naturally, nobody wants to know the actual remaining details of the exam. They are what they think you are. I generally have an \”exit only\” policy for my rear, but it\’s really more of a guideline than a rule. I was hoping he\’d find a t-shirt I\’d been missing in there, but no luck.

As it turns out, I do have some sort of prostate/bladder infection. They sent me down to the pharmacy to get some pills that the pharmacist told me might make my eyes extra-sensitive to light. I threw the pills on the desk and yelled, \”But they\’re for my grumpy wiener, not my eyes!\” The cops then escorted me out.*

I just wanted to mention this as the beginning of the end for me. I\’m heading downhill from here. Keep this post in mind when I am inevitably found keeled over dead while in line at the Culver\’s drive through. (Anyone who dies at a McDonald\’s runs the risk of becoming part of the menu.)

Sadly, there will be no telethon for people like me. It is the bladder infection victims who suffer quietly, often with their legs crossed, afraid to cry for help. When aid is finally given to these poor souls, it is often too late – and a mop and bucket on aisle 6 is necessary.

Fortunately, I hear there are pills you can buy online to help your wiener. I don\’t care if it takes months; I am going to hunt down one of these rare pill buying opportunities and turn my life around.

Oh, yeah – and the Jens Lekman show was good. Here\’s a song of his:

*-This did not happen.

The Revolution Will Be Televised

April 1, 2008 / / 0 Comments

I have been booked to appear as a guest on Milwaukee Public Television\’s \”Fourth Street Forum\” show, which films on April 10th. It airs on MPTV on April 11, then again on April 13th.

The subject of the roundtable is \”Wisconsin Taxes? What\’s Enough? What\’s Fair?\” Other guests include State Representative Jason Fields, State Senator Mary Lazich and Jack Norman from the Institute for Wisconsin\’s Future.

Fortunately, they podcast full episodes of the show – so in the highly unlikely event that you miss it, you\’ll be able to go online and catch it.

Eric Gagne: The second \”g\”; is not silent

April 1, 2008 / / 0 Comments

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When we\’re paying the guy $10 million a year, you\’d sort of hope your new star closer doesn\’t blow a three run 9th inning lead against your most-hated rival in his Brewer debut.

Assuming Eric Gagne appears in 75 games this season, today\’s gagged save just cost the Brewers $133,333. But then who even knows if we\’ll get that many games out of him since there is always the possibly he\’ll get a suspension for (allegedly) enjoying an HGH daiquiri or three.

Anyway, congratulations to the Brewers for overcoming this latest bout of bullpen incompetence to both beat the Cubs and keep themselves on pace for 162-0.

And my condolences to northside suds-enthusiasts, as Wrigley Field won\’t be able to serve bottles of beer this season since the Cubs lost the opener. Zing!

UPDATE:

E-mail sent to me during the 9th inning:

\”After you blow a 3-0 lead in your first game as Brewer it might be a good idea to MOVE YOUR FAT ASS and cover first base on a ground ball hit deep down the line to your first baseman.

Oh, and tuck in your shirt, you fat frog. And shave off that stupid homeless man beard.

One more thing, start taking drugs again.

And one final note, I hate you.\”

Happy Birthday to the Old Man

March 31, 2008 / / 0 Comments

Lifelong military man, lawyer, father of 5, husband of 38 years. My dad had done it all – until today, when he turns 60. Happy birthday, pops!

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(Interesting side note – my dad was actually born the same day as Al Gore: March 31, 1948. Ironic, given that in giving birth to me, my dad has done more to pollute the planet than Al Gore has ever done in cleaning it up.)

Three Cheers for Negativity

March 31, 2008 / / 1 Comment

Tomorrow, voters in Wisconsin head to the polls to elect a new Supreme Court justice, to vote on a constitutional amendment to limit the governor\’s veto power, and to vote for various local offices.

Much has been written about the Supreme Court race between Michael Gableman and Louis Butler, and the \”nasty\” tone that the race has taken. (Fortunately, Butler never figured out that Gableman\’s middle name is \”Hussein.\”)* TV ad after TV ad, including a great deal of independent ads not sponsored by the candidates, hammer away at their respective opponents, accusing them of everything from being \”soft on rapists and murderers\” to \”not recycling.\” As a result of these ads, the two competitors have become ubiquitous in the last month.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have the \”Frankenstein Veto\” constitutional amendment up for a vote, which would restrict the govenor\’s ability to \”stitch\” together words from separate sentences of an appropriations bill to cobble together new laws never intended by the Legislature. Unless you\’re a regular reader of the Wisconsin State Journal newspaper in Madison (who have made it their personal mission to get the change passed), you likely have little idea what this whole amendment does. Voters will likely go to the polls, read the question, and decide on the spot whether they approve of this broad veto power.

And why are people so less informed about this important constitutional change? Well, because there hasn\’t been any television, radio, or print advertising. Frankenstein himself hasn\’t been running any ads in favor of the veto power, and neither have groups opposing it. As a result, this crucial change to state government is flying under the radar. It\’s hard to predict what the final outcome will be, since it\’s hard to gauge how much people know about it.

On the other hand, voters are much more informed (or, misinformed, in some cases) about the Supreme Court race. Why? Because all these \”scurrilous\” ads actually have the effect of informing voters and heightening the profile of the race. In that respect, despite the unpleasantness of the ads themselves, it appears they do actually make voters more aware of the candidates.

As evidence, see the outstanding work of UW-Madison political science professor Ken Goldstein, who was featured in Sunday\’s Wisconsin State Journal:

Mudslinging is taken for granted in most political campaigns these days, and it \’s a tactic that we love to hate.

But negative campaigns ads may be getting a bad rap, says UW-Madison political science professor Ken Goldstein.

Goldstein \’s research suggests that, counter to what many may think, negative ads can enrich the political process by focusing vital attention on issues and the differences between candidates.

\”Talking about people \’s records and people \’s weaknesses I think is perfectly fair game when we talk about the important things that are at stake in elections. It \’s actually the very definition of a representative democracy, \” said Goldstein, co-author of the new book, \”Campaign Advertising and American Democracy. \”

\”You don \’t always find positive effects from negative advertising, \” he added. \”But you \’re not likely at all to find negative effects. \”

[…]

Negative ads are more likely to be about policy issues, he said. They \’re also more likely to be factually correct, perhaps because they can expect to face greater public and media scrutiny.

\”People certainly like to complain about them, but the evidence also shows they learn from them, \” Goldstein said. \”Everyone thinks negative ads are these mudslinging personal things. They are sometimes, but most of the time negative ads are about policy issues and so they \’re verifiable claims. \”

Contrast this to all the hand-wringing by good government types, whose tender sensibilities are so offended by negative advertising that they propose shutting them down altogether. Recently, the state\’s Government Accountability Board voted to regulate third party campaign advertising, which is constitutionally questionable, given these groups\’ free speech rights. The State Bar has attempted to set up a board to condemn what they believe to be misleading ads. Several bills in the Legislature seek to limit third party campaign spending, while funding campaigns with public money.

Yet, as Goldstein suggests, without both positive and negative advertising on behalf of candidates, nobody would know anything about what\’s at stake in the campaigns being run. Supreme Court races would be determined by a smaller slice of voters, as ill-informed voters are less likely to show up to vote. If editorial boards and campaign reformers had their way, statewide races would look a lot more like the Frankenstein veto effort – barely informed voters not knowing what they\’re voting on, or not showing up to the polls at all. Sadly, their \”ideal\” campaign is the biggest threat to true democracy that we face.

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*This is not true.

Crazy Colleges Revisited

March 27, 2008 / / 0 Comments

I got word from the Capitol today that my favorite annual governmental publication has been issued: the State Directory of Private Postsecondary Schools.

Two years ago, in my previous incarnation, I spent a lot of time going through this publication and describing the various private schools the state regulates. I just went back and read it, and I have to sheepishly admit that I think it\’s probably one of my best posts ever.

Have a look here.

The Wisconsin Legislature’s Putrid Present

March 27, 2008 / / 0 Comments

My wife and I used to have a great family dog. He was loving, loyal, and always happy to see me when I came home from work. However, on the rare occasion, he would sneak into the basement and have an “accident.” When he did so, he would run and hide behind the couch, knowing how little his rectal gift would be appreciated.

Eerily, my dog’s behavior mirrors the Wisconsin State Legislature’s attempts to pass a budget repair bill to fill in a $652 million hole this biennium. Put simply, the Legislature is pooping in our basement, and looking for a couch to hide behind.

In fact, the Assembly and Senate are so desperate to befoul our state’s finances without anyone noticing, they are willing to break the law to do so. Both houses have passed competing versions of budget adjustment bills without either house sending it to the Joint Finance Committee, where any appropriation bill legally has to go. According to the Wisconsin law:

“All bills introduced in either house of the legislature for the appropriation of money, providing for revenue or relating to taxation shall be referred to the joint committee on finance before being passed.”

Now, it may seem that whether or not a bill goes to the Joint Finance Committee is an arcane procedural technicality, obsessed over by only the most dedicated Capitol coneheads. But, in fact, the Joint Finance Committee exists specifically to remedy these types of funding emergencies, by putting the brakes on the process. The committee, which consists of members of both parties from both houses, forces the adults to the table to negotiate and doesn’t let them leave until they have a deal. (An excellent history and justification for the committee can be read here.)

When the Democrat-controlled Senate introduced their budget “repair” bill, they sent it to the “Senate Finance” committee. The Senate’s bill relies heavily on a new $400 million hospital tax, which they somehow believe will make health care less expensive. Then again, this is the same group that thought higher gas taxes would make gas cheaper, so we clearly shouldn’t expect much to begin with.

This hypothetical committee consisted of six Democrats and two Republicans – the Senate half of the Joint Committee. Naturally, the faux-Senate committee passed the bill before it was sent to the floor and passed by the full Senate. Needless to say, the “Senate Finance” committee is not the “Joint Finance” committee, where the bill legally had to go. Cutting the Assembly Republicans out of the equation allowed Democrats to whisk their bill through without any meaningful scrutiny.

Ironically, this tactic was first used in 2000, when now-disgraced Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala introduced his “mini budget,” which contained a laundry list of left-wing giveaways. It is believed that Chvala’s bill was both the first and last time this illegal procedural maneuver was used. Coincidentally, this gimmick was revived this year by long time Chvala ally Russ Decker, who now serves as Senate Majority Leader.

Even worse, the Assembly passed their budget repair version without ever sniffing the finance committee. Assembly Republicans merely yanked their bill to the floor and voted on it, hoping the whole mess would just go away. Their bill, which relied heavily on budgeting smoke and mirrors, actually increases the state’s structural deficit by $753 million. In effect, they “solve” the budget problem by giving us more of the same nonsense that got us in this fix in the first place. This is like curing an alcoholic by giving him enough Jim Beam to make him forget he’s a drunk.

In both cases, circumventing the legally mandated procedure allowed legislators to get out of town before anyone actually started to pay attention to what was in their equally-putrid bills. One capitol staffer told me that skipping Joint Finance is akin to a speeding ticket – yet when I speed, it doesn’t cost taxpayers $652 million.

Rather than using the budget shortfall as an opportunity to correct permanent flaws in the way Wisconsin spends money, our lawmakers are more comfortable high-tailing it for the hills. Most likely, they’ll sneak through their final agreement on the first day of warm weather, when reporters are busy investigating why people like to have picnics. But for now, lawmakers are intent on avoiding negative press and getting back to their districts to start running their campaigns. Take a look – you’ll find them hiding behind your couch.

-March 27, 2008

Mature Audiences Only

March 27, 2008 / / 0 Comments

At her Kansas City blog, my pal Christa made a point I had wanted to write about for a while. (In fact, I kind of did a little here.)

Her TV station aired a report about a controversial strip club siting that repeatedly called stripping \”adult entertainment.\” So sayeth Dubill:

A typical adult could do any number of things for entertainment: basketball, knitting, cooking, reading, kayaking, thumb wrestling competitions…

So why does a business allowing strippers, selling unmentionables, upsetting neighbors and city leaders alike, become what we describe as \”adult entertainment\”?

She then goes on to quote \”a guy\” who e-mailed her with some more outstanding observations:

It just seems strange to me that the words we use for looking at naked women always equate maturity with prurient desires. In fact, it\’s the exact opposite. Think about it – movies targeted to \”mature\” audiences. Going to a \”gentlemans\’ club.\” What is so mature or gentlemanly about stuffing dollar bills into a naked woman\’s garter?

In fact, I think it makes a lot more sense to consider those things \”immature.\” I understand a teenage boy looking at pictures of naked women a lot more than I can understand a grown man doing the same. Then, it just gets a little…creepy.


As it turns out, that \”guy\” is me. I don\’t understand how we ascribe \”maturity\” to things that would be more befitting of teenage boys than adults. Are we teaching kids that being more \”adult\” means being less in control of our desires? If that were the case, wouldn\’t 80 year-olds be entitled to the best lap dances?

This controversy illustrates one of life\’s fundamental truths, which has been said about alcohol: Boobs are both the cause and solution to all the world\’s problems.

(I\’m not sure how that relates to the rest of the post, but I thought it was funny to say out loud.)

Voters’ Date of Birth: Yesterday

March 27, 2008 / / 0 Comments

News has come down from on high: The newly-created Government Accountability Board has decided that they should be in charge of what people can and can’t say during elections. Apparently, they believe it is in the public’s best interest for an unelected board to limit political speech to save us all from democracy. Or, they just want to shut down Fairsley Foods:

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

When legislation authorizing the GAB was initially passed, there was concern that the Board’s powers may be too broad. It is now clear that those concerns were well-placed. Note the Board’s “duties” as described by the Legislative Council:

Act 1 creates two divisions in the GAB, each of which is under the direction and supervision of an administrator appointed by the GAB: the Ethics and Accountability Division and the Elections Division. The former has responsibility for administering campaign financing, lobbying, and ethics laws. The latter has responsibility for the administration of election laws.

[…]

The GAB is required to investigate violations of laws it administers and may prosecute, by its legal counsel or a special prosecutor, alleged civil violations of those laws. Alternatively, it may refer prosecution of alleged civil violations to the appropriate district attorney (which is the same prosecutor authorized to prosecute criminal violations).

Note anything missing there? Clearly, the GAB has the authority to prosecute existing laws that candidates violate, or ship them off to a district attorney for action. Yet the GAB has no authority to just make up new laws of their own to enforce. Those powers still rest with the Legislature, as explained in the article by Attorney Mike Wittenwyler:

Mike Wittenwyler, a lawyer who represents groups that sponsor issue ads, defended the ads as discussing public policy matters rather than candidates and said there ‘s no need to change the current rules. But he said that if the board makes changes, they must comply with state and federal court rulings.

Wittenwyler also questioned whether the board even has the authority to regulate issue ads, saying that ‘s the Legislature’s job.

Under the original bill, the GAB is allowed to issue advisory opinions, but states that “each advisory opinion issued by the board must be supported by specific legal authority under a statute or other law, or case or common law authority.” Needless to say, there is no current laws that deems the GAB the “speech police.”

Basically, the Board sees TV ads that they don’t like, and authority be damned, they want to do something about it. This smacks of the same outcome-based reading of the law that centers around the current Supreme Court race.

What’s even more troubling is how little credit this unelected board gives voters. They think that voters just must see these TV ads, not recognize them as typical attack ads, and swallow the whole thing hook line and sinker. They think the typical voter has just fallen off the proverbial turnip truck. (My apologies to anyone who actually has fallen off a turnip truck for the use of this insensitive metaphor.)

I will grant that these ads do have some effect. Otherwise, campaigns and third parties wouldn’t spend the kinds of dough they do to run them. But how much effect is really in question. It’s pretty clear that people who would most likely be affected by the message (those who know nothing about campaigns and politics) would be the least likely to vote. In some instances, voters might actually turn away from a candidate who runs an ad they deem to be inaccurate or repulsive. It’s impossible to measure the backlash.

Nobody likes negative campaign ads. But if the First Amendment exists for anything, it is to protect unpopular speech. Notice that nobody’s proposing a board to regulate praise of Brett Favre in Wisconsin. The only acceptable remedy for objectionable speech is more speech, not shutting it down altogether.

(Note: I see that Chris Lato makes a similar point today in this column.)

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