Olbermann should stick to talking about cartoons

Video pulled due to error to site.

Actually, it was just one condition: Jim Doyle keeps to his word not to raise taxes.

Mark Belling was obviously joking when he made his comments about Mine That Bird. Was Doyle joking when he said he would not consider raising taxes? Or just lying?

When the education establishment breaks the law

Jeff Dickert is this week's poster boy for a desperate education establishment afraid that their grip on the state department for public instruction may be slipping away. As WISN's Mark Belling reported first on Friday, Dickert sent out an e-mail invitation to a fundraiser for WEAC-endorsed Tony Evers in violation of the law. Badger Blogger also reported on it on Saturday.

Jeff Dickert is the administrator of the Cooperative Educational Service Agency #7, a state agency that coordinates with the schools of Northeastern Wisconsin. Dickert, in clear violation of the law, has been doing political work on behalf of the teachers union and AFSCME backed candidate, the entrenched Tony Evers. Jeff Dickert has used state resources to not only campaign, but to raise money for Evers, by using his official Wisconsin email account and email list to campaign to public school administrators of Wisconsin and encourages them to pass the message along to their principals and teachers. This is clearly a violation of the law by a public official that is in a position that clearly knows the rules for doing political work with state resources.

Badger Blogger also has posted the e-mail in question. The e-mail had an attached flier created by the Evers campaign. Evers' opponent is Rose Fernandez who ran nearly even with Evers in the primary despite being drastically outspent.

On Vicki McKenna's show today on WISN-AM it was revealed CRG Network is filing a complaint with the state Government Accountability Board. A commenter at Badger Blogger claims Dickert will be on WTAQ-AM with Jerry Bader tomorrow to defend himself.

Belling wrong on Koschnick candidacy

I think I got called a phony tonight on the radio. On today's program, WISN's Mark Belling once again claimed that State Supreme Court candidate Judge Randy Koschnick is not a candidate who can criticize judicial activism because of his past as a defense attorney, specifically as Ted Oswald's attorney. More, Belling takes umbrage at being criticized for his position, and calls conservatives that disagree with him "hypocritical phonies."

As the only conservative columnist to criticize Belling's position in print (hey, we're a small group), I should probably take it personally. Nah. Here's what I wrote in last week's Waukesha Freeman:

When WISN’s Mark Belling and the left-wing organization One Wisconsin Now are of the same opinion, there may be something wrong with the equation.

When Koschnick was still a public defender, he was assigned Waukesha’s most notorious murderer, Ted Oswald. Oswald, along with his father, was convicted of killing Waukesha police Capt. James Lutz as he fled a bank robbery in 1994.

Writing in The Freeman, Belling accused Koschnick of trying to help Oswald "get away with murdering a cop" by claiming Oswald was controlled by his father. Left-wing blogs and One Wisconsin Now agree the case should hurt Koschnick, arguing it’s hypocritical for the judge to run a "tough on crime" campaign.

It’s a little more complicated than either would make the issue.

Koschnick was assigned the case, and his defense was designed to get his client convicted of a lesser charge, second-degree murder. The penalty would have been 60 years instead of life in prison. A far cry from arguing Oswald should "get away with murdering a cop."

The concern should be less about Koschnick’s defense of a criminal as a defense attorney than whether Koschnick would be a liberal jurist who would invent law as Abrahamson did in the Knapp case. It is clear that he would not, and perhaps that is why the prosecutor in the Oswald case, former Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher, has endorsed Koschnick.

I'm not sure why this has become such an issue for Belling except to take him at his word. He doesn't like defense attorneys, and he doesn't want a defense attorney that defended a cop killer sitting on the bench. Fine, but it's a prejudice and not statement of legal philosophy. Belling owes it to his audience to explain why he's allowing his prejudices to affect his judgement rather than claim philosophical consistency while tarring his fellow conservatives as hypocrites.

Actual rebate schedule

Jay Weber of WISN has the "tax rebate" schedule posted on his website. However, my secret spies at the IRS have forwarded to me the actual schedule they expect to follow.

Remember, if you do get a rebate check, you can always use it to advertise here.

What, me sin?

You might have heard Jay Weber this morning discussing sin. This article in USA Today prompted the discussion.

A new survey by Ellison Research in Phoenix finds 87% of U.S. adults believe in the existence of sin, which is defined as "something that is almost always considered wrong, particularly from a religious or moral perspective."

Topping the list are adultery (81%) and racism (74%).

But other sins no longer draw majority condemnation. Premarital sex? Only 45% call it sin. Gambling? Just 30% say it's sinful.

"A lot of this is relative. We tend to view sin not as God views it, but how we view it," says Ellison president Ron Sellers.

David Kinnaman, president of Barna Research, a company in Ventura, Calif., that tracks Christian trends, draws a similar conclusion: "People are quick to toe the line on traditional thinking" that there is sin "but interpret that reality in a very personal and self-congratulatory manner" — I have to do what's best for me; I am not as sinful as most.

Indeed, 65% of U.S. adults say they will go to heaven, and only 0.05% believe they'll go to hell, according to a 2003 Barna telephone survey of 1,024 adults.