Dan Bice will know if you've been naughty or nice

Don't you dare speak out in support of McCain or ask him to be tougher with The Obama. If you do, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Dan Bice will get you.

The outburst brought Weisflog a ton of national publicity, including prominent play on the evening and cable TV news, the Rush Limbaugh radio show and a number of blogs and Web sites.

What those media outlets didn't say, however, was that Weisflog may have had good reason for being a little on edge.

And it had nothing to do with politics.

In the past year, Weisflog and his former business, Weisflog's Showroom Gallery, lost two state Supreme Court cases in a lengthy dispute with some customers.

I wonder which Democratic operative spent the time digging into the background of a private citizen and then passed the info onto Bice? I'm sure Weisflog's public flogging by the newspaper will set a fine example to any other would-be outspoken McCain supporter.

Disgusting, really. Apparently lost in the recent cuts at the newspaper was any sense of decency.

Egelhoff statement on attack ads by Greater Wisconsin Committee

Jo Egelhoff, candidate for the state assembly, issued a statement today in response to a negative attack campaign by the Greater Wisconsin Committee. Coincidentally (of course) it echoes the themes of the Bice column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that I debunked earlier today.

HEADLINE: Egelhoff Statement on Greater Wisconsin Committee's Negative Campaign

Appleton - A couple of years ago, I started my own small business, FoxPolitics.net, to encourage debate and discussion on issues of importance to the people of Appleton. The views expressed by me, my readers and guest columnists were designed to be both provocative and thought-provoking.

Little did I know at the time, that my commentary would be the subject of a $100,000 + smear campaign waged by a third-party Madison-based political action organization with ties to a former State Senator and convicted felon, Chuck Chvala. The lengths to which the Madison special interests will go to put their own candidate, Penny Bernard Schaber, in the State Assembly are truly astounding.

Since June, I have been campaigning door-to-door meeting with Appleton voters. To date, I have knocked on more than 12,000 doors in Appleton. With the generous support of many Fox Valley residents, I have been able to share my views on issues important to the people of Appleton in literature distributed by mail and advertising over the radio. I also maintain a website, www.votejo2008.com, that is updated regularly and details my positions - positions you can count on me to take if I am elected to the State Assembly.

In the closing days of the campaign, I am asking the people of Appleton to look beyond the negative campaigning and look at the issues and their impacton their job, their pocketbook and their family's future. You have my commitment that I will put Appleton first, putting the needs of Appleton ahead of the wants of the politicians and special interests in Madison.

I rarely endorse candidates anymore, but I can truthfully say that the people of Appleton would have a very difficult search to find someone to represent them in Madison better than Jo Egelhoff.

Reading Bice so you don't have to

Dan Bice, who was the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's designated blog reader "so you don't have to", is back to reading blogs. Bice looks at the online archives of Jo Egelhoff's Foxpolitics.net and sees apparent contradictions between positions she has taken now as a candidate compared to positions she took as a blogger.

As a candidate, Egelhoff talks about making the state’s schools the best in the nation. As a blogger, she spoke out in favor of eliminating kindergarten for 4-year-olds, shutting down all two-year colleges and restricting pay raises for teachers.

As a candidate, Egelhoff promises to work to lower prices at the gas pump. As a blogger, she ripped “gas price whiners,” defended ExxonMobil’s profits and suggested cutting state spending on roads by 10%.

As a candidate, she makes a strong pitch for making health care affordable for everyone. As a blogger, she attacked the state’s Medicaid program’s benefits, called Medicare and Social Security “giveaway” programs and was unenthusiastic about universal health care.

As Blogger Beer points out, these contradictions are only contradictions from Bice's point of view. For example, on gas prices:

There is no contradiction between wanting lower prices and defending another's rights to the money they earned. There are ways to lower gas prices – ways that do not entail penalizing successful industries! The state makes good money on gasoline w/o worrying about finding the raw material, refining, dispensing, and paying people to do all of that. I would love to see $0.50/gallon gasoline but I do not whine when it is $4.00/gallon, I cut back elsewhere, I minimize trips, plan trips, drive more conservatively. There is no inalienable right to gasoline. I also defend Exxon's right to make a profit, I have run small business like enterprises with an eye towards maximizing profit, it really changes your perspective when you get on the other side of the supply & demand curve.

I would add that on education there is nothing about the cuts "Egelhoff the blogger" proposed that is contrary to the ideal pursued by Egelhoff the candidate. The only way to perceive a contradiction is to believe that those programs are necessary to the goal of making Wisconsin's schools "the best in the nation," a dubious proposition at best.

As for health care, same thing. The government programs Bice cites are not part of anyone's plan for insuring the remaining Americans without health insurance, so why mention them at all?

As for gun control, Egelhoff has explained her position and how it has evolved. But I hardly believe the NRA has any remorse over their selection of Egelhoff over her opponent?

So the point of Bice's little exercise was what? That Egelhoff did not want her blog posts where they could be readily seen? But as Bice notes, "Egelhoff said she took down her blog after a staffer with the Government Accountability Board told her that it might be a campaign finance violation for her to post on a corporate-owned Web site." Specifically, her website. And as Bice saves for the last sentence, the GAB thought her decision to pull her posts down pretty smart as the "law is unclear."

This is not to say that any blogger that decides to run for public office shouldn't expect their blogs to be open records. But Bice is not merely reporting; he's making a judgment on Egelhoff's positions, using his own liberal bias as the measuring stick.

Perhaps instead of writing an investigative news column Bice should start a blog instead.

DOT spends $85,000 to pat itself on the back

Dan Bice in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports the DOT is spending $85,000 to pat itself on the back.

“The Marquette Interchange construction is completed,” says the announcer in the TV spot. “We’ve created a safe and easy-to-use interchange. And thanks to your cooperation, it’s done ahead of schedule and under budget. So take a drive through your new Marquette Interchange.”

The commercial shows Transportation Secretary Frank Busalacchi posing in front of the construction project. Also appearing are a restaurant owner, truck driver, business leader and Milwaukee Brewers staffer Rick Schlesinger.

The five-week ad campaign will air nearly 300 times on the four Milwaukee TV stations, and the radio spot will run more than 350 times.

Total tax dollars spent on the televised note of self-congratulations: $85,000.

It's like a wide receiver who gets up and does a dance because he caught a pass when his team is down 27-0. 

Wow.  Hooray.  We did a government project on time and under budget.   Let's put the government in charge of health care so they can celebrate every time they successfully transplant a kidney.

And I agree with Bice that $85,000 is nothing to sneeze at.  For that kind of money, we could have sent a Doyle cabinet member and his personal assistant to Europe at least twice.

Bice finds vice in money

To Dan Bice, money is the root of all evil. He and his former partner got great mileage out of Congressman Sensenbrenner's wealth. Now Bice has turned his sights on former Alderman Tom Nardelli who just accepted a job with County Executive Scott Walker. (ht: Badger Blogger)

Talk about feeding off the public trough.

After putting in nearly 18 years for the city as an aldermanic aide and a member of the Common Council, Nardelli is paid just under $30,000 a year by the city pension system.

Before going to work for the city, he spent more than 25 years with the U.S. Army Reserve, retiring as a lieutenant colonel. He declined last week to say how big his monthly military pension check is, stating that it's a private matter.

Then, just recently, Walker announced that Nardelli, 63, will be starting next month as his chief of staff, which will pay him $73,153 annually. Under county rules, he will be eligible for a county pension as soon as he starts because he's over 60. If he works five years for the county without a pay increase, he could get a pension of $5,500 to $7,300 a year.

Betcha Nardelli is really glad that he reversed himself and decided to endorse Walker in his first bid for county exec.

So which pension should Nardelli give up? His monthly military pension?

Does Bice believe Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett should not collect his congressional pension?

If Bice worked for a newspaper before he came to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, did he tell his former employer, "That's alright. You can keep my 401k."

Let's deal with the second charge, that this was some sort of payoff from Walker to Nardelli for an endorsement over five years ago. How absurd is that? Five years? If contributors to the governor's campaign had to wait five years for a state contract they would demand a refund.

Notice Bice had to make the charge himself this time because he couldn't find anyone else to make such an absurd charge. Even the spokesman, Jeff Fleming, for Walker's opponent declined to take a shot.

What Bice neglects to mention is that Nardelli might also be collecting from a fourth source, Journal Communications. Nardelli was a traffic guy for WTMJ-AM before the government bug bit him. Perhaps Bice didn't want to draw attention to the number of former Journal Communications employees working in politics and the public sector economy.

I find it hard to believe some editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel didn't say to Bice to go write another column, even as it should have occurred to Bice himself.

Find classic movies at Amazon.com

Top ten reasons Spivak & Bice are not staying together

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is publishing the last Spivak & Bice column today. Yes, the boys are splitting up like Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Hope and Crosby, Simon and Garfunkel, India and Pakistan. My spies have found out ten reasons Spivak & Bice are being split up:

1. Don't have Tom Reynolds to kick around anymore.
2. Tired of being confused with Penn and Teller.
3. Could not agree which of them should read the blogs, and which of them should write about the blogs.
4. Tired of bloggers e-mailing them, "You linked to me but I'm not seeing any traffic. Doesn't anybody read you guys?"
5. Bice wanted top billing.
6. Democrats in majority in Madison - no longer sending hot tips.
7. "Spice Boys" nickname made Spivak nervous.
8. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel embarrassed to actually have one news finding column in the newspaper.
9. Spivak too neat. Bice is too sloppy.
10. Smaller size of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel meant room for only Spivak or Bice, but not both, in picture above column.
    

Buy Wisconsin Stuff Now!

I better catch up on my reading

Spivak & Bice are a column no more. (Ht: Badger Blogger)

Who will "trudge through the scores of local political blogs" so I don't have to? Who will mock state senators who want to raise the speed limit? Who will senselessly attack Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner just because he is rich?


Buy Wisconsin Stuff Now!