I appreciate the concern which is been rose. The things need to be
sorted out because it is about the individual but it can be with
everyone.
--------

Wisconsin's largest two anti-abortion advocacy groups, Pro-Life Wisconsin and Wisconsin Right To Life have always been at war. PLW believes WRTL is nothing more than an arm of the Republican Party and only serves to get pro-lifers to vote Republican, while Pro-Life Wisconsin's goal is simple: stop abortions in all circumstances. No exceptions, no apologies.

At first all was seemingly well in the pro-life world in Wisconsin, at least in respect to the U.S. Senate race. In the spring, all the conservative candidates towed the pro-life line of being 100% pro-life and there was no conflict between the two groups.

Then came Ron "clear the field" Johnson. At first he seemed to be a solid pro-lifer, saying that he believed in the "Culture of Life" in regards to abortion, a term synonomous with being, no-exceptions, 100% pro-life. But then he went on the Jerry Bader show up in Green Bay and said that he wasn't 100% pro-life and believed in three exceptions when abortion should be allowed.

This revelation by Johnson didn't go over well with Pro-Life Wisconsin, who believes in banning abortions in all circumstances:

Pro-life means defending each and every innocent human being at all stages of development and in all circumstances, including those whom it is not “politically correct” to protect. For example: the child conceived in rape; the child whose mother’s life is perceived to be in danger; the disabled preborn baby; the tiny embryo vulnerable to experimental research; or the terminally ill who are viewed as “burdens” on society. It is clear life begins at conception, so it is clear there may never be an exception to an innocent person’s inalienable right to life.

Pro-Life Wisconsin has held high the banner of total protection for all preborn children. Because we insist on this high standard, more and more candidates for elected office are 100% pro-life. We stand behind those candidates who stand behind 100% of the babies. And we lovingly but firmly challenge and educate those candidates who don’t believe every child has a right to live.

This left the pro-life community in a pickel: there were only two candidates left in the U.S. Senate campaign and one was 100% pro-life (Dave Westlake) and one wasn't (Ron Johnson), but one didn't have money (Dave Westlake) and one did (Ron Johnson).

So, WRTL went along with the rest of the Republican establishment and endorsed the candidate with money, Ron Johnson, while snubbing Westlake.   PLW, on the other hand, endorsed the candidates that were 100% pro-life, Dave Westlake and Rob Taylor of the Constitution Party, while snubbing Johnson. 

This has not gone unnoticed by conservative bloggers over at Red State. Sassie Lassie says:

WRTL endorsed a candidate, Ron Johnosn, who says he is pro-life but believes in abortions in some instances. WRTL had Sarah Palin speak at one of their fund raisers last fall in Milwaukee, WI. In speaking with WRTL president, Barb Lyons told me that WRTL does endorse candidates who are NOT 100% Pro-Life. This is an insult to human life and to anyone who has ever donated to this organization. I am sure Sarah Palin did not understand their position or I am sure Sarah Palin would not have spoken for them. I sent an email to Sarah but have not heard back from her yet.

Wisconsin does however have a candidate that is 100% Pro-life. His name is DAVE WESTLAKE. He does believe in the “Culture of Life,” which is a 100% pro-life postion, even though Ron Johnson uses the term without understanding it’s meaning.

While acollins41, in a post called "Dave Westlake is NOT Ron Johnson," says:

Wisconsin Right to Life recently endorsed Ron Johnson, citing that he is the candidate who can best defeat Feingold, rather than stating that he is the candidate that best matches their organizations views - because he clearly doesn’t.  Johnson allows exceptions (rape, incest, life of the mother in danger) while Westlake has advocated that he is 100% pro-life with no exceptions.  Allowing exceptions calls into question the reason why we don’t allow abortions in the first place.  Westlake’s views on abortion are much more on par with conservative values.

In a ham-handed attempt to paper-over Johnson's pro-life shortcomings, WRTL has now started a if-you-say-it-long-enough-and-loud-enough-people will-believe-it campaign, where they keep reassuring pro-lifers that "Johnson has responded positively to all key pro-life issues" -- something they clearly know not to be true.

It will be intresting to see how this shakes-out.  The pro-life crowd is a huge voting block in the Republican primary.  If Westlake continues his populist charge and upsets Johnson for the nomination, it would also be a huge upset victory for Pro-Life Wisconsin over WRTL.

Following OWN's revelation that Walker vetoed $150,000 for county building inspections in 2008, the Milwaukee County Supervisors are now also questioning Walker's commitment to keeping county buildings safe and well maintained.

Recently Wisconsin Right to Life launched My Election Central, which lists all of the WRTL endorsed candidates and gives little snippets based on how they answered the candidate questionnaire. That had the following to say about Ron Johnson:

A newcomer to public office, Johnson has responded positively on all key right-to-life issues.

Hmmm... This can mean only one of two things:  Either Johnson "responded positively on all right-to-life issues" and said on WRTL's candidate questionnaire that that he opposes abortion in all circumstances, with no exceptions, or it means that WRTL believes that banning all abortions is not one of its "key right-to-life issues."

Considering that on their website, WRTL lists their "key right-to-life issues" and devotes an entire section to abortion in cases of rape and another to abortion in cases of incest, it seems that these are, indeed, "key issues" to WRTL.  In addition, WRTL devoted the first two questions of their 2008 candidate questionnaire to gauging support of banning abortions with "no exceptions."

I should also mention that other "key right-to-life issues" for WRTL are keeping the Terri Schiavo's of the world alive, opposing stem cell research, and even making run-of-the-mill birth control pills inaccessable to Wisconsin women. 

Like other issues, Johnson has given a wide range of contradictory answers on abortion:  

*He started out his campaign by saying that he believed in the "culture of life," which is understood as meaning no exceptions.Then he told George Will that he was a libertarian and an Ayn Rand deciple,(Ayn Rand was a pro-choice activist), while at the same time attacking Feingold on partial-birth abortion.

*Then he told ultra-conservative talk show host Jerry Bader that he believed in a "culture of life," but when Bader clarified that he was a "no-exceptions" candidate, a stuttering Johnson said he meant to say that he opposed banning abortions in cases of rape, incest and life of the mother.  

*Then WRTL endorsed him and not Dave Westlake, even though Westlake is a "no exceptions" candidate and WRTL is endorsing more than one candidate in lots of races, including Governor.

*Now WRTL is saying that Johsnson has "responded positively on all right-to-life issues."

Clear as mud.

While his campaign was airing an ad where Johnson is looking into the camera and blasting deficit spending as "inter-generational theft," Ron Johnson was at the Madison Club on Monday saying the exact opposite:

“I am not totally opposed to some deficit spending if it had been targeted at real, prioritized infrastructure projects and tax cuts that would actually create demand and actually puts money in the pockets of business people so that they could invest."

As Yogi might say, its deja vu trickle down economics all over again.  

Since the seventies, we've been sold many different reincarnations of trickle-down economics, (the most recent being Dubya), and the only thing we have to show for it is an economy in the ditch, record debt, a vanishing middle class, and a top 1% that is richer now than they've ever been in our nation's history.

You heard that right:  The top 1% have a greater proportion of our nation's wealth than at any other time in our nation's history.  So the premise that Johnson is throwing out that the economy would get going if and only if rich people had more money to invest is simply not true. 

Plus, there is the issue of fairness.  Shouldn't rich people pay their fair share of taxes?

Recently, Warren Buffet did the math and figured that he spends 18% of his income on taxes, but that his receptionist pays nearly twice that-- 33%. "Frankly, an economy where my receptionist pays a lot higher tax rate than, than I do does not strike me as a just economy," said Buffet.  "I see nothing wrong with those who have been blessed by this society to give a larger portion of their income to the society than somebody that's working very, very hard to make ends meet."

Of course, Johnson doesn't see the world as Buffett does.  Johnson only thinks about taxes as something that goes into an envelope-- another bill he has to pay.  He doesn't think about schools, national defense or roads or anything else that goes toward making this country a great place to make millions in a plastics company.

On June 14, 2010 Ron Johnson was asked by WisPolitics: 

"Do you want to open up more of the United States, continental United States, to drilling?  Would you support drilling, like in the Great Lakes, for example, if there was oil found there? Or anymore oil exploration in Alaska? ANWR and those kind of things..."

Johnson responded on a speaker phone (meaning that he heard the question on a clear and loud speaker phone):

 “Yeah, you know, the bottom line is we are an oil-based economy.  There's nothing we're going to do to get off of that for many years.  I think we have to be realistic and recognize that fact and, you know, I, I think we have to, get the oil where it is, but we have to do it where it is.”

The point of the question wasn't if he supported drilling in the Great Lakes. What the reporter was asking if there was any place that we should protect from drilling oil and used the Great Lakes as an example. 

A month after he made the "get the oil where it is" statement, he said that he didn't mean the Great Lakes.  Therefore, we can gather, he meant ANYWHERE on the "top of the United States" EXCEPT the Great Lakes. 

Let's see... that means that Johnson still believes that we should "get the oil where it is" no matter how ridiculous:

Lake Winnebago? "Get the oil where it is!"

Lake Mendota? "Get the oil where it is!"

Horicon Marsh? "Get the oil where it is!"

... Even Lambeau Field?!? "Get the oil where it is!"

Gentlereaders, submitted for your approval or outrage, the latest head-to-head by the MacIver Institute's Brian Fraley and yours truly.

This week's subject: the Supreme Court's decision on the state's patient compensation fund.

All the yummy goodness is here: http://www.wisopinion.com/index.iml?mdl=article.mdl&article=29098

Ron Johnson, latest ad features a car stuck in the mud, spinning its tires, as a ridiculous metaphoric attak on one of the U.S. Senate's most accomplished Senators.

Oh, but the campaign didn't feature just any car, no they picked a GM-made Buick, whose familiar trishield logo is prominently displayed on the wheel that is spinning in the mud.

Ron Johnson's ad is especially comicly inappropriate considering that Buick is one of the three lines that is exceeding demand and that GM is considering re-opening shuttered plants (such as the one in Janesville) to meet this demand.  

I hope Ron Johnson didn't pay to much for this ad.  Its been universally panned for being grossly untruthful, (must recently by PolitiFact), and now we find that they couldn't even get it right when it came to picking which car to feature as the one getting stuck in the mud! 

Russ Feingold, of course, has been on the frontlines in trying to get the Janesville plant up and going and would have never made such a glaring mistake.  I guess sometimes experience does count for something.

Yesterday PolitiFact weighed in on Ron Johnson's absurd and defamatory ad now running against Russ Feingold. They gave Johnson's ad their "barely true" designation which is way over on the left side of the truth-o-meter, between "half-true" and "false."

The problem with their analysis, however, is that for some unknown reason they decided not to weigh in on the crux of the ad: Whether or not Johnson's allegation that Feingold is lying and conjured-up the notion that Johnson said he supports oil drilling in the Great Lakes. 

They say, "In this item, we won't get into the question of whether Johnson opposes drilling in the Great Lakes."  That's kind of like saying, "In this item, we won't get int the question of whether John Wilkes Booth shot President Lincoln, but instead focus on Booth's failure to pay for a ticket to see the play."

While Johnson's allegation that Feingold is a hypocrite is defamatory and should have came in as "false" on the truth-o-meter, by far the largest issue of the ad is that Johnson is calling Feingold a liar for accusing him of saying that he supports oil drilling in the Great Lakes.

This is pretty cut and dry stuff.  Johnson was asked by a Wispolitics reporter if there were any areas that he would consider off-limits to oil drilling and specifically asked if he would "support drilling in the Great Lakes, for example?"  His response was," Yeah, you know the bottom line is, we are an oil based economy and there’s nothing we’re going to do to get off of that for many, many years. So we have to be realistic and recognize that fact. We have to get the oil where it is" 

In Johnson's ad it says, "Russ Feingold is starting his campaign by slinging mud, Ron Johnson opposes drilling in the Great Lakes and Feingold knows it."  This is defamation at its worst:  Johnson is accusing Feingold of knowingly lying and conjuring up what Johnson told the Wispolitics reporter about drilling in the Great Lakes.

It's also Rovian politics at its worst. Instead of Johnson saying that he thought about it more and decided that drilling in the Great Lakes was a bad idea, he decided to make million dollar ad buy accusing Feingold of making the whole thing up.

Defenders of Johnson will say that he has a right to say whatever he wants, but the First Amendment does not defend politcal ads that are false and every word in Johnson's ad is false.  While TV stations aren't allowed to pull Johnson's ads because they are false, Feingold does have a good defamation law suit against Johnson and should pursue that legal avenue to get the ad off the air.  

I also hope PolitiFact and other watch dog groups weigh in on the crux of the ad and give the Feingold campaign the ammunition they need to brand Johnson's campaign for their reckless untruthfullness.

Something big needs to happen, though.  If not, this Senate campaign will devolve quickly into a mud wrestling match, which is what the Johnson campaign wants.

As we all know, health care in America is changing rapidly. Twenty-five years ago, most people in the United States had indemnity insurance coverage. A person with indemnity insurance could go to any doctor, hospital, or other provider (which would bill for each service given), and the insurance and the patient would each pay part of the bill. But today, more than half of all Americans who have health insurance are enrolled in some kind of managed care plan — an organized way of both providing services and paying for them. However, these managed care plans are not as enticing and financially savvy as one would think.

Yet, the current problem of limited access to health insurance in the United States will not go away and because there is not accessible care for all, the health care system needs to be restructured…and it will be according to President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. 

Most Americans under the age of 65 have private health insurance obtained through an employer. According to Congressional Budget Office’s estimates, about 63 percent of that population (161 million people) had employment-based coverage in 2006, while about 4 percent (10 million people) purchased private coverage directly from an insurer. The two main sources of public financing for health care are Medicare and Medicaid. Nearly 43 million elderly or disabled individuals were enrolled in Medicare in 2006, and nearly 61 million low-income individuals were enrolled in Medicaid for at least part of the year. About 43 million people (constituting 17 percent of the nonelderly population) were uninsured.

Additionally, U.S. spending on health care reached $2.5 trillion in 2009, according to federal estimates. It is expected to jump to $4.5 trillion in 10 years, according to the Wall Street Journal. As health care spending consumes a greater and greater share of the nation’s economic output in the future, Americans will be faced with increasingly difficult choices between health care and other priorities.

The Affordable Care Act, signed by President Obama on March 23rd, is designed to eliminate the problem of insurance companies limiting necessary care, to stop companies from placing pre-existing condition bars on children under the age of 19, to remove the unnecessary barriers insurance companies place upon patients- meaning patients will no longer be required to acquire referrals to see specialty specific physicians. Additionally, this act promises that patients or insureds will be free to choose any primary care physician within the insured network and that there will be no lifetime limits on coverage. 

Other positives aspects to this plan include: the policy of keeping young adults covered meaning that children under the age of 26 will be allowed to stay on their parents’ insurance plan, and no rescissions of insurance coverage- this means that if the insured becomes ill, insurance companies will not be able to retroactively cancel the insured’s policy as they can right now. 

Personally, I am most excited about the policy of keeping young adults covered, this means that I can stay on my parents’ current plan and not have to worry about the burden of health insurance until I am finished with college. I believe this plan will positive effects and am grateful that something has been done to better the current system because the overall goal of the Affordable Care Act is to provide affordable, accessible health care.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has pledged to spend an ungodly amount of money in an attempt to finish the GOP's efforts to wreck the national economy, upped the lies in its typical campaign ads.

Tough luck though for the Chamber of Economic Horrors in Pennsylvania, though, as false ads running against U.S. Senate candidate Joe Sestak were yanked.

Sean Duffy, the former Republican Ashland County District Attorney will welcome disgraced ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich to a big-money Wausau fundraiser Friday. Duffy has not said whether it was Gingrich’s repeated adultery, ethics imbroglios or his negotiating of his divorce from the first of his three wives while she lie in a hospital bed recovering from cancer surgery that inspired Duffy to bring Gingrich to Wisconsin.

Wisconsin has the highest percentage of binge drinkers in the US, the 3rd lowest alcohol tax, the 3rd highest percentage of fatal accidents caused by alcohol, and over 26% of adults admit they have driven drunk in a year, leading to 44,000 drunk driving offenses, 238 deaths, and nearly 4,000 injuries in 2009.

On July 1st, a new set of laws "ramping up" the severity of punishment for operating while intoxicated came into effect. These laws are meant to crack down on Wisconsin’s high drunk driving and alcohol-related accident rates.
The new, “strict” law is as follows:

The first offense is strictly a traffic violation. Offenders will be issued a citation and have their license suspended. Ignition interlocks aren’t mandated unless the driver blows over a .15 BAC, .07 over the legal limit.

The second offense is a misdemeanor with a fine and jailtime from 5 days to 6 months. Licenses are suspended for 12 to 18 months with a mandatory ignition interlock.

The third offense is a misdemeanor with a fine and jailtime from 45 days to 1 year. Licenses are suspended from 2 to 3 years again with a mandatory ignition interlock.

The fourth offense constitutes a fine and jailtime from 45 days to 1 year. Licenses are suspended from 2 to 3 years.

Only does an OWI become a felony if the 4th offense is committed within 5 years of the 3rd DUI conviction, or until the 5th DUI is committed. [Source]

These changes hardly constitute a crackdown on punishing drunk drivers.
In states such as New York, Oklahoma and Indiana, drunk driving becomes a felony on the second offense with jailtime from 5 to 10 years. These states also rank in the bottom half of the US in terms of binge drinking and have a significantly lower rate of fatal crashes caused by alcohol (about 27% compared to Wisconsin’s 41% in 2008). [Source]

It's easy to attribute those differences to their stricter laws regulating alcohol and drunk driving. However, it’s important to examine other factors. For example, Wisconsin has the largest drinking population of any state and has three times more taverns or bars per person than the rest of the entire US.

This information points to the problem as being rooted in drinking's role in Wisconsin's culture, shifting blame away from laws regulating alcohol. Drinking, tailgating, and pregaming are all ingrained in Wisconsin’s working-class sports and university culture, whether you have a beer and a brat before a Badger, Packer, or Brewer game or relieve stress from a busy week of classes by going to a bar with your friends. And Wisconsin seems to be more enthusiastic about this tradition than other states.

This amounts to Wisconsin’s new drunk driving laws as treating the symptoms, not the cause of the “disease.” It would be like giving Pepto-Bismol to cure the flu. The remedy won’t work, and it won't even quell the symptoms. Even with a suspended license and heavy fine, without mandatory ignition interlocks after a first offense there is little stopping someone from becoming a repeat OWI offender.

Punishing drunk driving without addressing societal characteristics that cause this behavior will fail to solve the problem.

Until there is a cultural shift within Wisconsin that changes our view of drinking from a desirable social behavior to a dangerous activity that can endanger your health or the health of others, there will continue to be alcohol-related deaths from traffic accidents and adverse health effects.

Unfortunately, this shift is unlikely. At the very least, the people of Wisconsin deserve to be safe while driving on public roads.

The new laws implemented on July 1st fall pathetically short of this goal, leaving advocates of lax drunk driving laws with blood on their hands.

Neumann Avoided More Than $25,000 In Real Estate Transfer Fees Former congressman Mark Neumann and his real estate company did not pay more than $25,000 in real estate transfer fees in 2008, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Neumann transferred millions of dollars worth of property from Neumann Developments to MN Holdings, a company his son formed in 2008. Two weeks after creating MN Holdings, Neumann Developments transferred 120 properties worth around $6.7 million dollars. The fees were not paid under the assumption that he was exempted on the grounds that he owns both corporations. However, The Isthmus reports that, “an annotation that clearly spells out that for the exemption to apply, the transfer must be between a corporation and "humans," not other corporate entities.” In addition, properties owned for three years or more are exempted from transfer fees, but Neumann did not own the properties for more than three years.

 Chris Lato, spokesman for Mark Neumann’s gubernatorial campaign, admitted the error, "The deal here is it was a screw-up, Neumann Developments, Inc. followed what it believed to be appropriate procedures. Turns out they were wrong." Lato claims Neumann was the victim of bad legal advice, but declines to reveal who gave the counseling. He also deflected blame saying in a statement, “The folks at the Register of Deeds office also accepted this premise and allowed the transfers to be filed.” In addition, Lato said that more missed fees have been found and that Neumann was in the process of paying the fees, interest and penalties.

In a murky twist, Mark Neumann and his son, Matt, both claimed to be president of MN Holdings in the past 18 months. The Journal Sentinel reports that in July 2008, Matt Neumann signed a document as president of the company. Two weeks later, Mark Neumann claimed to be president before his son again signed off as president in November 2009. Although it’s perfectly legal to change business owners, it’s very unusual to change presidents often.

Brewers pitcher Yovanni Gallardo is sitting out tonight's All-Star game in Los Angeles -- he hurt his back last week and hasn't played since. Next year’s All-Star Game is in Arizona, and the Brewer’s best pitcher won’t play in that game either, but for different reasons.

"If the game is in Arizona, I will totally boycott," Gallardo said yesterday during an interview with the Associated Press. Gallardo is just one of several other high-profile Latin American players who have promised a boycott of the game over Arizona’s ridiculous anti-immigration law.

It seems the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s landmark (in)decision last week—on whether or not to hold Justice Michael Gableman accountable for the lies that got him elected—appears to embody all the worst qualities of a World Cup soccer match.   

From the inane pre-trial theatrics that rivaled a stadium full of vuvuzelas in their ability to distract and annoy to a quarrelling bench that makes the historically-dysfunctional French team look like the Brady Bunch, the court made a mockery of our justice system by letting Gableman off the hook without so much as a yellow card.  

The 3-3 vote that split the court down ideological lines had all the ambiguity of a draw, leaving followers of the case unsatisfied and effectively putting truth and justice on equal footing with the lies and deceit of Gableman’s campaign.   

In case you missed it, the dishonesty in question stems from a 2008 campaign ad in which Gableman falsely claimed that opponent Louis Butler helped get a pedophilic child molester, Ruben Lee Mitchell, out of prison so he could strike again.  As it turns out, the “loophole” Butler was accused of finding didn’t actually work, and Mitchell spent years behind bars before being lawfully released.   

Yet despite the blatant manipulation of truth, the court’s conservative wing—Justices Prosser, Roggensack and Ziegler—took the Frankenstein-veto approach and argued that, when broken down into bits and pieces, the ad’s statements were objectively true, no matter what they implied when they were put together as a whole.   

Justice Ziegler is, of course, no stranger to controversy and ethics violations.  You may remember the court’s 2008 decision that ruled in favor of pro-business lobby Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce.   Despite the fact that WMC spent millions of dollars to get Ziegler elected, she refused requests to recuse herself from the case, ignoring the conflict of interest and even authoring the court’s majority opinion.