The Wisconsin Realtors Association and Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce are Number 1 in the bigs.

IN TYPICAL WISCHUCKLEHEADS SHORTHAND Jeff Mayers and Phil "I don't do any content. I don't have any input into the editorial" Prange, egged on by their politico insiders the Wisconsin Realtors Association, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and shopping cart lobbyist Brandon Scholz, endorse Scott Walker’s guv bid.

Tom Barrett just won’t do for these insiders. Besides, Barrett has only an $850,000 war chest and Walker about $1 million.

Never mind that Mark Neumann and four other Republicans, four independents, and a Democrat candidate have registered for the Nov. 2, 2010 election.

ON THE MARK is a reaction to a Cap Times column about a part-time legislature, "I was elected to the Legislature in 1970 with the understanding that it would take about three to four months the first legislative year and about 60 days the second legislative year. In my second term, when it became a full-time Legislature, I did not run for re-election. I do not regret the time I spent in the Legislature, but there’s no way in the world I would even have run for office based on the full-time requirements since 1976."

Why Is My Auto Insurance Bill So High All Of A Sudden? a shocked millionaire Alberta Darling demands to know, referring to a change in the law that will increase her auto insurance rates.

Tough economic times ahead for River Hills residents while they are trying to do less with more.

The Blues are disgusted with health care reform encroaching on private health insurance markets

In yet more anti health reform, the Business Journal’s article on national health care reform will drive up premium costs in the private health insurance markets, particularly for the young and the healthy, according to data from a series of state-level studies from insurance company WellPoint Inc., parent company to Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Wisconsin, jumps to page 40 before stating that no everyone shares WellPoint’s point of view.

“I think it is blatantly obvious why one of America’s health insurance giants would engage in another misinformation campaign to try to scare the American people into believing health insurance reform will do more harm than good,” said U.S. Rep Gwen Moore, a Democrat from Milwaukee. “These companies are ignoring the myriad provisions that contain costs, such as premium credits for young adults and the benefits of creating a health exchange, which the Congressional Budget Office says will reduce premiums.”

“In a world where we’re trying to create a more sustainable health care system, all of the proposals do nothing but increase costs and work to counter that goal,” said Larry Schreiber, president of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Wisconsin.

But Schreiber didn’t mention that a drop in enrollment prompted by the economic downturn and continued high unemployment led health insurer WellPoint Inc. to an 11 percent decline in third-quarter profit.

Another shill for insurers, Andy Serio, president of the Health Care System Consultants Division of The Horton Group, Pewaukee, also said because the current reform bills being proposed in the House and the Senate, don’t address the cost of health care, healthier people will end up subsidizing the less healthy.

Moore also cited a recent report by MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, which shows that reform will lower premiums for Americans purchasing insurance on their own.

$88 a Day

What ifs?

What if senator blah blah blah Bob Jauch paid airfare back and forth from the 25th Senate District?

What if the state didn’t pay for blowhard Mike Ellis to shop for hairpieces?

And Ellis’ staffer Kurt Schultz showed up in Madison to earn $70,000 a year?

What if Scott Fitzgerald had enough work for eight high-paid staffers to do besides campaign for the GOP?

If Russ Decker is unelected will Chuck Chvala have to support Barbara Worcester?

Will the lobbyists drinking in the Madison Club still make fun of Jeff Wood’s predicament if they get an OWI?

What if Fred Risser’s staff made their own coffee instead of visiting Starbucks so frequently?

Why’d President Barack Obama speak to the graybeard voters in Madison, when he could have inspired the school kids in the Milwaukee Public System?

What if commercial real estate with an “ag crop on it”, didn’t qualify for ag use assessment under Wisconsin Statutes, and financially benefit the likes of Terrence Wall and George Gialamas?

Is this woman one of Jeff Wood's constituents?

Woman tells dispatcher she had been ‘drinking all night long’

Associated Press
Nov. 2, 2009

NEILSVILLE, Wis. - The call came into the 911 dispatcher: "I don't want to hurt anybody. I'm drunk." And with that, Mary Strey, 49, of Granton, reported herself as a drunken driver about three miles northeast of Neilsville in central Wisconsin.

Clark County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Jim Backus said Monday that Strey's call on Oct. 24 led deputies to cite her for misdemeanor drunken driving with a blood-alcohol level double the legal limit to drive. She makes her first court appearance Dec. 10.

Backus said drunken drivers reporting themselves is rare.

In the 911 call, Strey said she wanted to report a drunken driver and the dispatcher asked if she was behind the suspect vehicle. "I am them," Strey said. She then followed the dispatcher's advice to pull over and turn on her flashers, telling him she had been "drinking all night long."

Combat the Swine Flu

SC Johnson Floor Wax, makers of Purell instant disinfectant and antibacterial hand sanitizers, is responsible for the swine flu.

The firm’s ads are so successful that almost everybody is spritzing Purell on their hands. The pungent odor of the antibacterial chemical is everywhere.

But the pork lobby lost the battle in trying to ban the media from calling H1N1, which requires a vaccine, the swine flu. Everybody calls the medical malady the swine flu.

But let’s hope the pandemic isn't as severe as the dire prognostications of the medical experts. The prognosis is good if everyone keeps using copious amounts of Purell products.

Health care system reform and public option have hospital execs worried

Leo Brideau, president and CEO of Columbia St. Mary's Inc., Milwaukee; Bill Petasnick, CEO of Froedtert & Community Health, Wauwatosa; Rexford Titus (not shown) CEO of ProHealth Care Inc., Waukesha; and Dr. Nick Turkal, CEO of Aurora Health Care, Milwaukee, and chair of the Wisconsin Hospital Association lobby, don’t know the extent of health care reform, they just know they’re against what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said is a health reform bill that will include the public health insurance option.

These guys didn’t get filthy rich providing affordable, quality, accessible health care coverage to the poor.

Wisconsin isn't all liverwurst sandwiches

Wisconsin households have the highest credit scores in the nation, based on credit scores calculated by credit bureau Equifax and FICO.

Ten Chimneys estate in Genesee Depot

Academy Award-nominated actress Lynn Redgrave returns next year to the Lunt-Fontanne Fellowship Program, a new theater fellowship program at Ten Chimneys in Genesee Depot, as an instructor focusing on Shakespeare.

Ten Chimneys is a national museum and resource center for theater and arts education.

Legendary thespians Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne vacationed at the Ten Chimneys estate.

MOST OF THE POLITICIANS assigned to the ethics committee meeting Wednesday morning to consider bouncing Rep. Jeff Wood, I-Chippewa Falls, can out drink him.

Wood, who apparently has a bad driver gene, was arrested for his fifth driving while intoxicated offense last week. See the story on that here.

The committee will meet at 9 a.m. at 415 Northwest in the state Capitol and will discuss "committee process," according to the meeting notice.

FOLEY & LARDNER LAWYER Bill Conley has been nominated by President Barack Obama to succeed U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb, a federal judge for the Western District of Wisconsin, who is retiring after 30 years.

Neanderthal in a Buick

Too bad Rep. Jeff Wood, I-Chippewa Falls, has legal problems — even WisChuckleheads.com has stopped snickering and chuckling about it — but what’s even sadder is that he took an oath of office to represent constituents in the 67th Assembly District.

But there’s a fat chance of that happening while Wisconsin taxpayers are paying Minnesota to dry him out.

While other legislators have learned to booze where they don’t drink and drive, Wood is accused of a third DUI. But his sobriety tests may show that a deviated septum caused his driving erratically. Or maybe there's a Bad Driver gene to blame.

An Eye on Crime logo nonetheless frames Wood as a criminal and a falling down drunk.

But with a former weatherperson at WISC-TV an alleged pedophile, WISC-TV’s Colin Benedict ought not to cast aspersions on the adversity of an unfortunate politician.

Benedict, news director at WISC TV, Channel 3 in Madison suspended Jeffrey Smith from his job as the weekday show News 3 This Morning's meteorologist pending an investigation into allegations against Smith. The Sauk County District attorney charged Smith with incest.

Ignoring all that, notably, WISC-TV and WisChuckleheads never posted the police videotape of Russ Decker’s DUI, nor the arrest photos of Mike Ellis or Roger Breske.

Granted, Wood is hogging the show with so many arrests, but to be fair and balanced a director at both WisChuckleheads and the Madison Club was DUI. And fundraiser Phil Prange’s brother-in-law Nick Hurtgen awaits sentencing from a federal judge for corruption in Illinois that Hurtgen pleaded guilty to.

But Prange has never been big on doing fundraisers for independent political candidates.

Meanwhile, members of a new ethics committee that will hear evidence on expelling Wood from the state Legislature will undoubtedly deliberate privately over cool ones at the Avenue Bar, Inn on the Park or Downtown Madisons.

However, the committee should not take lightly the idea of removing somebody from office that the popular vote put there. Al Gore’s an exception, but he deserved to go down.

Wish Woody a speedy recovery so the Chippewa Valley doesn’t elect another Dave Zien to office.

Terry Moulton, who got him kicked out of office by the voters, is another loser from that area.

In spite of not voluntarily resigning and TABOR in ashes Wood probably intends to seek re-election.

(Why do subscribers pay for Jeff Mayers' opinions on Fridays when his Stock Report is posted in the Cap Times on Wednesdays? And how soon before Prange and Mayers sell out to WisconsinEye?)