Hiding tax fraud from the IRS

After a scrupulous audit by the ghost of Arthur Andersen, four current and former partners of the giant accounting firm Ernst & Young were charged Wednesday with fraud and other crimes relating to tax shelters that helped the wealthy escape taxes on incomes exceeding $10 million.

According to a newswire story, all four worked in a group set up by the company in 1998 to develop tax shelters, according to an indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. The men allegedly defrauded the Internal Revenue Service from 1998 through 2004 by designing, marketing and selling fraudulent tax shelters.

U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia said in a statement that the indictment targets "tax professionals whose deceit costs this country untold millions in tax revenues."

Stood-up McBride replaced on WTMJ radio with inane patter of Dennis Miller

WTMJ-AM (620) just said ‘no’ to talk show host Jessica McBride, who drew criticism for a recent on-air shtick that insensitively referenced slain 4-year-old Milwaukeean Jasmine Owens.

WTMJ fired McBride on May 1, replacing her with the syndicated Dennis Miller show, which began May 24 and runs from 8 to 11 p.m. on Wednesdays.

Bane of McBride, Bill Christofferson, allegedly, had nothing whatsoever to do station management’s decision to fire her.

Wolfowitz blames media for resignation

May 28, 2007

Departing World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz in a radio interview broadcast Monday blamed an overheated atmosphere at the bank and in the media for forcing him to resign.

Wolfowitz, who has announced he will step down June 30, denied suggestions that his decision to leave was influenced by an apparent lack of support from the bank's employees.

"I think it tells us more about the media than about the bank and I'll leave it at that," he told the British Broadcasting Corp. "People were reacting to a whole string of inaccurate statements and by the time we got to anything approximating accuracy the passions were around the bend."

Wolfowitz said that he was pleased the bank's board accepted that he had acted ethically, and in good faith in his handling of a generous compensation package for his girlfriend and bank employee Shaha Riza in 2005.

"I accept the fact that by the time we got around to that, emotions here were so overheated that I don't think I could have accomplished what I wanted to accomplish for the people I really care about," he said.

By tradition, the United States — the bank's biggest financial contributor — names an American to run the institution.

Wolfowitz's departure ends a two-year run at the development bank that was marked by controversy from the start, given his previous role as a major architect of the Iraq war when he served as the No. 2 official at the Pentagon.

Does Wolfie's girlfriend get to keep the generous compensation package from the bank?

Wineke must choose a hat

Capital Times editorial

May 26, 2007

This newspaper has always maintained a measure of fondness for former state Sen. John (er, Joe) Wineke. The Dane County Democrat, who carried our endorsement in most of his campaigns, has always been something of a rogue. But he's been a populist rogue, and a smart one as well. As a legislator, he did not always vote right, but he could usually be counted on for the tough votes -- against punitive welfare reform, against draconian criminal justice missteps and in favor of industrial workers and family farmers.

It was Wineke's record that led us to welcome his decision to take over as chairman of the often dysfunctional Democratic Party of Wisconsin. And, for the most part, Wineke has done a decent job. Working without a salary, he has hired able young staffers and worked well with the growing number of activist party organizations around the state. He has been an effective challenger of the worst excesses of Republicans at the state and federal levels. When cynical Republicans moved to amend the state Constitution to discriminate against gays and lesbians, Wineke made sure the Democratic Party was heard loud and clear as an opposing voice.

So it is with some regret that we note Wineke's boneheaded decision to accept a $2,000-a-month contract to lobby on behalf of the AT&T communications conglomerate at a time when AT&T is trying to ram through the Legislature changes in cable television regulations that would harm consumers, undermine local control and stifle public access programming.

The AT&T-backed proposal is a classic example of everything that is wrong with how government now works in Wisconsin. The bill was written not by legislators, but by lawyers and lobbyists for a corporation that will benefit from its enactment. It is opposed by just about everyone who is serious about lowering cable rates, reforming flawed regulatory policies and fostering democratic media discourse. It is backed primarily by AT&T, which is busy making campaign contributions to legislators and hiring former legislators as lobbyists.

That's where Wineke comes in. He is a former state senator who still knows a lot of the people in the Capitol, and he is a current state party chair who is familiar with all the new Democrats in the Senate. Since Senate Democrats are the legislators who have responded to public complaints about the Republican-backed bill by slowing its progress, Wineke is a logical hire for AT&T.

Unfortunately, the AT&T work conflicts with his duties as party chair.

When Wineke talks to a Democratic legislator or to Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, is he wearing his party hat or his lobbyist hat? When he talks about what's good for consumers, is he doing so as the head of the party of the people or as the paid mouthpiece of a corporation aiming to squeeze as much money as it can out of Wisconsinites?

Wineke says that because he does not take a salary as party chair, he needs to do contract work to make a living. That's fair. But when a contract places him in direct conflict with Democrats who are doing the right thing, and when that conflict creates genuine confusion about which team Wineke is playing for at any particular moment, a choice has to be made. And that choice is being highlighted now by county party resolutions taking Wineke to task for what some grass-roots Democrats see as a self-serving abuse of his position as chairman.

After the Eau Claire County Democratic Party, one of the most energetic local parties in the state, voted last week to demand that Wineke resign his position as state party chair, county party Chair Katy Phillips said, "We believe it is unethical for our state party chair to take a job as a paid lobbyist for any entity. It gives the appearance of impropriety and seriously compromises the integrity of the Democratic Party. We expect our state party chair to support Democratic issues in Madison and to not be beholden to any single corporation. It's just plain wrong."

That's a tough line, but an appropriate one. Wineke must recognize that he has to make a choice between serving as party chair and serving AT&T. Frankly, we hope Wineke will choose to remain as party chair, where we think he can play an important role in the run-up to the 2008 state and federal elections. But the bottom line is beyond debate: If Wineke decides to remain on AT&T's payroll, then he cannot remain as party chair.

http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/editorial/index.php?ntid=136666

Working without a salary seems like a reach, especially for the lobbyists that hang around the Madison Club.

And why can't the Cap Times get first and last names correct?

The Scopes 'Monkey Trial' - July 10, 1925 - July 25, 1925

A significant American legal case (Scopes v. State, 152 Tenn. 424, 278 S.W. 57 (Tenn. 1925), tested a law passed in March 1925 that forbade the teaching, in any state-funded educational establishment in Tennessee of "any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals." What is often interpreted as meaning that the law forbade the teaching of any aspect of the theory of evolution.

Called to the witness stand, the testimony of William Jennings Bryan evolved into the interchange that targets the essence of Clarence Darrow's argument and signals the turning point in the trial, which brought public sentiment decisively over to Darrow's side:

"You have given considerable study to the Bible, haven't you, Mr. Bryan?"

"Yes, sir; I have tried to ... But, of course, I have studied it more as I have become older than when I was a boy."

"Do you claim then that everything in the Bible should be literally interpreted?"

"I believe everything in the Bible should be accepted as it is given there ..."
Darrow continued to question Bryan on the actuality of Jonah and the whale, Joshua's making the sun stand still and the Tower of Babel, as Bryan began to have more difficulty answering.

Q: "Do you think the earth was made in six days?"

A: "Not six days of 24 hours ... My impression is they were periods ..."

Q: "Now, if you call those periods, they may have been a very long time?"

A: "They might have been."

Q: "The creation might have been going on for a very long time?"

A: "It might have continued for millions of years ..."

More recently, Tom Teepen, a columnist from the Cox News Service, duly noted, Republican candidates for the 2008 Presidential nomination, U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, and Cong. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., don't believe in evolution - unless it involves their presidential campaign chances.

"So far has the Republican Party fallen into a sink of anti-intellectualism. Indeed, into fantasy," Teepen wrote. "You might as well ask the candidates whether they believe in ghosts, fairies and calorie-free doughnuts."

He continued: "Charles Darwin published his seminal 'Origin of Species' in 1859. It was quickly understood by a major part of the scientific community ... But here we are, 148 years later, and American politics still cringes before Biblical literalists who insist upon a finger-snapping God who popped creation into being in six days about 6,000 years ago. Even candidates who know better duck as many chances as they can to say that they do."

But polls show that the three Republicans were well within the mainstream of American opinion. A March Gallup Poll found that 48 percent of American adults believe God made humans "pretty much in the present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so." A Harris poll in June 2005 found that 64 percent of adults believe "human beings were created directly by God," while 22 percent say humans "evolved from earlier species."

Even after the debate, Huckabee wasn't backing down.

"If you want to believe that your family came from apes, that's fine. I'll accept that," he said, according to the Des Moines Register. "I just don't happen to think that I did."

http://www.lufkindailynews.com/opin/content/shared/news/stories/2007/TEEPEN_COLUMN_0508_COX_1STLD.html

And that, says a farmer from Barneveld, is the state of the nation in the year 2007.

Taking Out the Trash

Instead of renting pink billboards, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce should push to limit the terms of state legislators as a subject of public policy debate.

Pompous, rotund and largely ineffective state Sen. Bob Jauch, D-Poplar, is the ideal poster person for term limits.

Derisively known in the state Capitol as “Senator Blah Blah Blah” Jauch just doesn’t get it.

If a state lawmaker gets sick, does anyone notice?

The issue: Democrats in the state Senate all vote to preserve sick leave perk.

Our view: In the case of lawmakers, the benefit is a huge waste of tax dollars.

The Democrats who hold an 18-15 majority in the state Senate recently all voted to kill a proposal to eliminate a perk available to them and virtually all public employees that pays them twice to come to work so they can retire earlier than the rest of us.

The provision allows lawmakers to convert unused sick leave into health insurance payments when they retire. This benefit comes in handy because it enables public employees to retire with a generous taxpayer-funded pension coupled with enough money in unused sick leave — provided they’re on the public payroll long enough — to pay for health insurance to cover those years of early retirement until Medicare kicks in.

The vote wouldn’t have put a huge dent in our tax burden because it only would have affected the 132 legislators, state justices and judges, and other state elected officials. This number is a mere drop in the bucket compared with the thousands of other public employees who wouldn’t have been affected by the proposal. But it would have been a nice gesture by our elected officials, who almost all campaign on the platform of fighting for the taxpayer against the giant tentacles of government.

The biggest farce isn’t these lawmakers forgetting where they came from in voting themselves such perks. In this case the problem is — to be blunt — who cares if a lawmaker gets sick?

Think about it. The Legislature rarely is in session five days a week. On top of that, state lawmakers go months at a time without being in session, and much of the time at the end of sessions is wasted proposing hare-brained bills that have absolutely no chance of going anywhere. So whether or not lawmakers are sick — or just goofing off in their districts many days during the year — has no bearing on the state’s ability to function.

This is in contrast to most other public employees. That is, if a school teacher is sick, a substitute must be brought in and paid. If a police officer is bedridden, another officer must fill in, often on overtime. In such cases it can be argued allowing such an arrangement saves taxpayers money. Of course, that’s only true if every person was actually sick for every allotted sick day, which rarely is the case.

The Assembly earlier voted 66-19 to eliminate the benefit for legislators before the Senate Democrats decided to scuttle the bill.

Too bad the rest of us can’t simply vote ourselves such perks.

— Don Huebscher, editor, Eau Claire Leader-Telegram, posted 5/20/2007 9:22:06 AM

(Who has accumulated the largest amount of sick leave? Shirley Abrahamson. The judges have a huge gravy train in this area.)

Political Campaign Fundraising in the Madison Club, they’ll let anyone in these days

Running a successful campaign is expensive.

The legitimacy of a candidate is directly proportional to financial backing and campaign cash on hand or politically economic credibility.

Friends, family and fellow influence peddlers are great resources to build your bank account.

Let’s imagine a make-believe couple – Cathy and Nick – who most understand your vision and support your political ambitions.

Commonly contributing to the Republican National Committee and individual GOP candidates, Nick can, and does, identify himself as Mr. P. N. Hurtgen; Mr. P. Nicholas Hurtgen; and Mr. Nick Hurtgen, managing director of Bear Stearns.

You get the idea.

Cathy morphs into Catherine Hurtgen, art consultant, business, Madison, Wis.; Ms. Catherine P. Hurtgen, homemaker, Chicago; Catherine Hurtgen, Glencoe, Ill.; and Mrs. Catherine Prange Hurtgen, private investor, self-employed, Glencoe, Ill.

Try it. It’s fun.

WisconsinEye Launch on Internet and Cable TV Fizzles

Madison, Wis. – The premier of much ballyhooed WisconsinEye fizzled on the launch pad Wednesday, and it could be a few months before cable broadcasts will be available.

WisEye was supposed to begin live broadcast coverage of the state Legislature on the Internet May 16 after the business entity had finalized agreements to launch digital channels on the Charter and Time Warner cable systems in Wisconsin.

WisconsinEye, the new statewide public affairs network, premiered its redesigned website at www.wiseye.org with live coverage of both legislative houses and Joint Finance Committee deliberations, but the server kept crashing.

Frustrated, state Capitol staffers gave up trying to watch JFC and instead listened in on the squawk boxes each office has.

The website probably crashed because it is insolvent since capital infrastructure costs were eaten up with inflated salaries of Jeff Roberts, the ex-Capitol radio reporter who developed the concept.

During 2001, 2002 and 2003, for instance, Roberts raked in $370,000 and Jon Henkes was generously compensated $279,167 during the same period.

In 2001 and 2002 Gerrit Marshall received $117,000. And Dave Robertson was paid $55,565 in 2002.

In those three years, WisconsinEye paid Roberts and company $821,732 in salaries. Salaries for 1999, 2000, 2004, 2005, 2006, are unavailable.

The amount WisconsinEye president Chris Long receives in salary wasn’t released.

It’s money that could have been spent on funding the network’s launch.

The state government network has been in limbo the past seven or eight years ever since the C-SPAN style Wisconsin Eye promised live gavel-to-gavel Internet broadcast coverage of the state Assembly and Senate.

Hey! Somebody had to pay for Roberts' BMW British Racing Green motorcar before the fledgling network canned him.

Preacher Van Hollen turns AG gig into TV evangelism

Imagine perfect golfing weather for the GOP convention in Lake Geneva on Mother's Day weekend.

Then picture gewgaw J.B. Van Hollen bringing up guns and abortion.

Nothing from the kid’s show host and attorney general about affordable health care, education the economy and prices at the pump spurring predictions of $4-per-gallon gasoline.

Van Hollen remarks to the party faithful, er, “party of god” was to impress Tinker Tommy the Oval office man.

Nick Hurtgen, a former Thompson aide, who was indicted on extortion and fraud charges in May 2005, didn't have much to say. He was just hanging out at the resort and campaigning for a job after being ostracized from Illinois.

He doesn’t seem to be down and out because after Judge John Grady tossed all seven counts against him, TGT’s presidential campaign received $1,500 from Catherine Hurtgen, the sister of TGT's longtime paid fund-raiser Phil Prange.

Is Chicago attorney Ron Safer saying Nick is in the clear or can we expect the case to escalate to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals after U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald makes the motions?

Fitzgerald prosecuted I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who was convicted in March of lying and obstructing a leak investigation that reached into the highest levels of the Bush administration.

Another Fitz, state Senate Minority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, delayed the shotgun start on the golf course by introducing himself to delegates to the state Republican Party of Wisconsin convention as "the next majority leader of the state Senate."

Adding to it’s lame coverage of the convention, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said that delegates were asked in a straw poll conducted by Prange’s partisan opinionated political Web site WisPolitics.com to find a favorite candidate for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.

Cate Zeuske, former state treasurer and ex-secretary of the state Department of Revenue under Thompson, and Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, were there cheerleading for Tommy G. Thompson's camp. John Gard was also on the scene looking for gainful employment and making excuses for Thompson who is struggling to get noticed among nearly a dozen candidates.

Meanwhile, Republican Sens. Alberta Darling of River Hills, Sheila Harsdorf of River Falls and Dan Kapanke of La Crosse, likely unable to hold on to their seats in '08 may have to work in Fitz’s Capitol office along with the rest of his burgeoning staff.

If George Warmonger Bush had been in Jamestown 400 years ago, we’d still be warring with the Pilgrims.

Bush was reminded that the work of American democracy is “to constantly renew and to extend the blessings of liberty” that his administration is so desperately trying to remove.

And what was Laura Bush doing there walking the grounds at a leisurely place? Didn’t the National Enquirer report she dumped boozing Bush?

Beer Me

Brash Joe “Six-Pack” Wineke has diversified even more so these days, now he’s co-hosting Lunch Pail Logic, a statewide radio show “aimed at promoting the concerns of Wisconsin’s working families.”

Various labor unions sponsor the show a production of Big Wild Communications of Middleton. http://www.bigwildcommunications.com/AboutUs.htm

Joe Six-Pack has been busily lobbying for telecom giant AT&T along with toiling in the vineyards as chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

Maybe the show can invite Scott Manley, environmental policy director for Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and Steve Baas, a lobbyist for the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce to explain the dismantling of environmental regulations that protect the air working families breathe and the clean water they rely on.

Both WMC and Baas were the great political nemesis of Wineke, a former legislator.

New leader at SWIB

After Dave Mills announced his retirement plans a few months ago as SWIB's executive director, the board offered the position to Keith Bozarth, he accepted and begins his new responsibilities in late June, according to Sandy Drew, legislative & beneficiary liaison with the State of Wisconsin Investment Board.

GOD SPOKE TO GOP GOLFERS

God spoke to J. B. Van Hollen on Saturday at the Republican state convention and golf meet in Lake Geneva and God said it was perfectly okay for J.B. to watch ESPN on cable TV in the AG’s office.

The Big Guy also, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, told Van Hollen the GOP is a 'party of God'.

But doesn't Osama bin Laden say the same thing? And if the GOP is the party of God, shouldn't we just start calling them Hezbollah?

While neither version is acceptable, there is a difference between parties of god v. the party of god. Just a matter of which is worse. Isn’t it sort of like choosing between Scylla and Charybdis (you know the whirlpool and clashing rocks thing)?

Whatevvvverrr.

The Journal Sentinel removed the online blurb indicating that minor Deity Van Hollen is apparently in the know on matters of religious faith and the latest ESPN coverage, scores, and news headlines for all professional and college sports.

What Saturday’s JS said:

Van Hollen says GOP is a 'party of God'

Lake Geneva - The Republican Party is a "party of god," the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel overheard Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen say Saturday at the state GOP convention.

"We're a party of god, we're a party of faith, we're a party that will do the right thing and represent the people," Van Hollen said at the close of his remarks that touched on the party's support for gun rights and opposition to abortion.

Van Hollen was elected attorney general in November, defeating Democrat Kathleen Falk. He was the only Republican who won election to a statewide office.

Since Van Hollen is for concealed carry then it's likely the NRA spoke to him, too. In that case the money was doin' the talkin'.

If J.B. didn't get the AG gig he would have become a teevee evangelist.

Timing is everything

Hey, Catherine Hurtgen, federal charges have been dropped against your husband - a guy once described as the ghost in then-Gov. Tommy Thompson's machine. What are you going to do to celebrate?

Trip to Disney? Nah.

Try something much more mundane: a donation to Thompson's presidential campaign.

Back to business as usual.

Catherine Hurtgen and her husband, Nick, have been a steady source of campaign contributions to many Republicans and some Democrats over the years.

But after Nick Hurtgen, a former Thompson aide, was indicted on extortion and fraud charges in May 2005, the pair all but quit writing checks to politicians.

Then, on March 20, a judge tossed all seven counts against Nick Hurtgen. Prosecutors asked that the charges be reinstated.

One day after the judge's order, Thompson's presidential campaign received $1,500 from Catherine Hurtgen, records show. Hurtgen is the sister of the ex-guv's longtime fund-raiser Phil Prange.

Is it possible the donation came before the charges were dismissed?

Without discussing the particular donation, Thompson spokesman Tony Jewell said the finance folks move quickly to record donations. Those made via the Internet are registered immediately, while checks are booked the day they are received, Jewell said. "They log it as they receive it."

Safe to say this will be the first of many campaign checks now that Nick Hurtgen looks like he's in the clear.

From May 9-10 Dan Bice column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Dispelling the myth that the mainstream media has the God-given right to determine what’s news

Who tried the case in which a three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago vacated Georgia Thompson's convictions and ordered her released from an Illinois prison, and what can we expect from Chris Van Wagner if U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald ratchets the Nick Hurtgen case up to the 7th Circ, after U.S. District Judge John Grady denied the government's motion for reconsideration last week?

Could jail time enhance the career images of Paris Hilton and Hurtgen, the former Tommy G. Thompson administration’s top deputy to Herr Klauser? Just kidding!

Conviction of Georgia Thompson Vacated

7TH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS VACATES THOMPSON'S CONVICTION & ORDERS HER IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals vacated Georgia Thompson's convictions and ordered her immediate release.

Georgia Thompson was tried on Federal charges for steering funds to a travel agency that also contributed to Governor Jim Doyle's election campaign. Ms. Thompson denied any knowledge of the donations and said that it would be absolutely normal for her not to be aware of such things.

During oral arguments, the Appellate Court judges told the prosecutors that their case was "beyond thin" and Judge Diane Wood asked the prosecutors if that "was all" they had as evidence and argument.

Legal analyst Chris Van Wagner said that the court's ruling Thursday was extraordinary. "That is more than a legal ruling; it's a slap in the face," Van Wagner said. "This, no question about it, is a major affront to the government in many ways. Most significantly, it said you should have never brought this case."

Chris Van Wagner has handled many Federal cases and many Federal appeals. He said that the court's decision was rare and remarkable. "Two or three cases out of 100 are vacated. This case wasn't just vacated and sent back for a retrial, but rather the judges ordered an acquittal."

Not that Van Wagner is taking credit for the court's ruling or anything like that.

http://www.vanwagnerwood.com/CM/Custom/Thompson_Conviction_Vacated_7thCircuit.asp

The daily White House briefing to George Warmonger Bush concluded by saying: "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed."

"OH NO!" the President exclaims. "That's terrible!"

His staff sit stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sits, head in hands.

Finally, the President looks up and asks, "How many is a brazillion?"

Sometimes the Repubs get it

"It's embarrassing for anyone serving in the body that the chairman of the Democratic Party has been hired to lobby," said Senate Minority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau.

Unthinkable in the RPW.

In the Nick of Time

U.S. District Judge John Grady nixed the government's motion for reconsideration in the Nick Hurtgen case.

The next available option for prosecutors is the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Newspaper subscriptions decline

Hmm. So the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is reporting the "news" on TGT by watching the Comedy Central's "The Daily Show."

At least JS offers some political factoids. The Wisconsin State Journal has completely rolled over and given up on covering Wisconsin politics. And the Capital Times looks backwards for its progressive political perspective.

Madison's trusted name in pillaging

Roth Judd defends Ziegler investigation

This is funny: The state Ethics Board gave a heads-up to the Supreme Court today that, constitutionally, it can investigate Justice-elect Annette Ziegler and done her $25,000 in forfeitures for alleged insider deals involving her husband’s patronage on the board of West Bend Savings Bank, while she was a Washington County judge.

Sleazy as that might be, it's nothing in Wisconsin politics. Just have WMC write the check Ms. Ziegler and stop whining to the high court that Roth Judd can’t discipline you.

It’s not like you won’t be sworn in Aug. 1 as a Supreme Court justice.

The alleged conflict of interest involving Janine Geske and her husband’s handling of garbage didn’t prevent Janine from serving as a justice and now molding minds at Marquette.

Besides, you're interfering with Roth Judd’s tee time.

Calling D-Verona . . .

Despite opposition to a controversial bill promoted by telecommunications giant AT&T, Joe Six-Pack Wineke lobbied for Phil Montgomery’s legislation in which municipalities i.e., cities, villages, and towns will no longer have any say on its utility right-of-ways.

Under the bill, the 30-year old system of local governments licensing, and negotiating fees, with cable TV and telecommunications companies would be replaced with state-issued franchises.

Joe must be short of cash or full of, euphemistically speaking, political information.

But Wineke's always has been brash - even on the golf course.

His lobbying capers beyond AT&T could be a spectacular disaster.

Serving Humanity

One Adult Beverage at a Time in the Madison Club

Quite contrary to popular disbelief the not-so exclusive Madison Club did not participate in SHOES for Uganda.

At an ice cream social on Saturday, UW-Madison students urged attendees to donate SHOES for Uganda. “Clean out your closet! Donate shoes!” and clothes and food.

The unfortunate people of Uganda have battled against a runaway AIDS pandemic, a brutal civil war that lasted nearly two decades resulting in millions of orphaned children struggling simply to make ends meet.

Shoes for Uganda, is one small step in offering desperately needed assistance in complementing the drive for food, medical supplies, clothing and other necessities.

It’s the thing to do.

Well, the Moose says cheap $10 wine tastings, Italian cooking classes and Epicurean wine dinners in the tacky confines of the Madison Club are vital, too.

Nass should question free office space in Capitol

Concerned about a budget that raises taxes and fees, Republican Rep. Steve Nass of Whitewater should question the unwritten agreement that gives the news media 700 square feet of free office space in the state Capitol.

It is unimaginable that while almost everyone else is accustomed to a reduction in spending, the news media is guaranteed free accommodations.

Remember the fuss over the caucus scandal and leggies charged and convicted for capitalizing on state time and state resources? The state Senate can better use the space now occupied by the in-name-only Capitol Press Association.

The real estate that private businesses and a cooperative enterprise use for nothing is worth a huge rental fee.

Among the Democrats controlling the state Senate, with six Senate Democrats and two Senate Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee, and Republicans controlling the Assembly, with six Republicans and two Assembly Democrats on the panel, there should be enough interest in saving a considerable amount of money.

Before the news media relocated to the pressroom upstairs in the Capitol, there was an “underground press.”

In 1996, the Senate chamber and other offices in the South Wing of the Capitol temporarily relocated to the “Old Insurance Building," 119 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., so restoration of the Capitol could continue.

The 33 senators and their staffs were housed for about three years in four buildings: the Old Insurance Building, the North Hamilton Building, 1 E. Main or the Capitol. The Joint Finance Committee and its then co-chairmen, Rep. Ben Brancel and Sen. Tim Weeden, also were housed at the Martin Luther King Jr. building.

The Senate move was completed Jan. 9, 1996, and the move affected relatively few Assembly offices.

While Capitol renovation moved to the South Wing, Senators toasted their old digs. "Goodbye old chamber,'" murmured then Senate President Brian Rude as the Senate adjourned.

When the Senate relocated to the old Insurance Building on Martin Luther King Drive, the Capitol pressroom was also temporarily moved.

The pressroom officially closed Dec. 29, 1995 and reopened in “subterranean temporary digs” in the basement of the Capitol's West Wing on Jan. 2, 1996.

News Media Relegated to Capitol Basement

In August 1995, Capitol news media types “got their eviction notice” when “Legislative leaders issued a four-page letter telling reporters to be prepared to move to the Capitol basement by the end of the year.”

The current room used by the news media was scheduled to be part of the next step in the Capitol’s restoration.

The South Wing - phase three of the step-by-step updating of the Capitol in all four wings - was due for re-occupancy in late November 1998 after three years of improvements. The formal unveiling was scheduled for January 1999.

News media have occupied space on the second floor of the Capitol - the location of the Assembly and Senate - for several years.

At the time of relocation, the correspondents association urged the leaders to continue that tradition.

Then Assembly Speaker David Prosser, R-Appleton, and Rude, said in the letter that was impossible because it would eliminate "an important committee and party caucus room or expel the administrator of state courts from the building."

The Prosser-Rude letter hyped the new pressroom facilities in the basement contending they cost taxpayers “approximately $100,000 to develop.''

They indicated the news media were getting a deal - compared to others who’d been evicted from the Capitol as the state Legislature continued its expansion in the building.

"Virtually all legislative service agencies, both chief clerk offices, support services and all four caucus staffs (now defunct) have permanently vacated the building," they wrote.

But the correspondents association had repeatedly informed the legislative leaders it was happy with the amount of space it had been utilizing.

The letter, however, indicated a different view of matters.

"The Capitol press corps will move from a cramped, inefficient space with 700 square feet to a modern, usable space with 1,200 square feet," wrote Rude and Prosser.

They said the $100,000 pressroom provides "an opportunity for 40 computer terminals to be installed in the area." Although, only about 10 were used when the news media was housed downstairs.

The news media was shrinking. United Press International had folded and Milwaukee's two daily newspapers had recently merged.

Eventually, after restoration of the south wing was finished the news media scampered back to the pressroom under an arrangement that the occupants would have to pay for new workstations or carrals to replace the metal desks that former Goodman, Wis. native Neil Shively used.

The one-time fee that varied was pretty much determined by the cost of the new office furniture and whatever Senate chief clerk Don Schneider approved with participants and Dick Wheeler at the time.

During that period of time, in mid-May 1997, the Capitol press corps got apoplexy and “shunned an unexpected visitor to ‘press row’ in the Assembly chamber.”

Contrary to an agreement between the Capitol Correspondents Association and legislative leaders, a representative of Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce's news service was seated at one of two tables on either side of the speaker's rostrum.

WMC is the state's largest business lobbying group.

“They don't belong there because they are a registered lobbyist,'' said the Wisconsin Radio Network's Jeff Roberts, vice chairman of the correspondents association. "They don't belong on press row," Roberts vehemently protested.

(Yes. The same Jeff Roberts that returned later to promote WisconsinEye and pocket a salary of $120,000 annually for several years.)

"We had a deal. We negotiated in good faith." Roberts said Assembly Speaker Ben Brancel, R-Endeavor, is acting improperly. Press corps members had the understanding that WMC's news service would be seated in the visitors' gallery. Brancel said he would take the complaints under advisement.

Where Sen. Ted Kanavas, R-Brookfield, calls for “budget transparency” he may want to do a memo that details what a deal for-profit news organizations are getting with 700 square feet of free office space.

Blast from the Past

WMC Drops Its Online News Service

The Capital Times

October 17, 1997

A subsidiary of a business lobbying group is closing an online legislative information service because revenues did not meet expectations.

The online service was ``a little bit ahead of its time for a lot of potential subscribers,'' said Michael Shoys, vice president of WMC Services Corp., which is a unit of Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce. Shoys said Thursday that the Wisconsin Business Network would close at the end of the year. The service started about two years ago.

The network targeted lobbying firms, law firms and businesses, offering them complete, convenient and timely access to information about legislative proceedings.

The service has about 50 subscribers who paid $1,750 or $2,250 for anannual subscription.

Shoys said the Wisconsin Business Network had met resistance and hostility from Capitol news reporters and some legislators who felt that the network shouldn't be given news credentials because it was too closely aligned with WMC, the state's largest business lobbying group with 4,600 members.

The decision to drop the network was strictly a business decision and had nothing to do with the network's political reception, Shoys said.

"We are not pleased that we can't continue this program," Shoys said.

The service's two remaining jobs will be eliminated, Shoys said. A third employee already has been transferred internally, he said.

WMC Services Corp. also publishes annual "blue book" directories of Wisconsin manufacturing and service companies, and offers group insurance plans and long-distance telephone discounts to businesses.

Comment on Proposed Lawyer Fee: Ugh

Once described in an opinion in the Marshfield News-Herald by an advocate of medical marijuana as “neck deep in the caucus scandal,” Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford, has called for lawyers to pay a fee to access the Wisconsin Circuit Court Access webpage.

Labeled by Suder as the “CCAP Tax” – which, unlike what Suder will try to claim, is simply, in reality, just a filing fee that only lawyers will have to pay with funds then being used to support the entire CCAP site for all state residents.

The measure passed the Joint Finance Committee, with Sens. Darling, Olsen, and Reps. Stone and Kestell joining 8 Democrats in voting for it.

Note: Despite what Wisconsin drug reform activist Ben Masel wished for, Suder was never charged with anything in the interminable caucus scandal.

For Madison Club, plan gets worse

Beltline Bob should put a stop to Roger Ervin’s recommendation that WMC fire its senior staff

An abrupt change in leadership would worsen the fragile economy of the not-so-exclusive Madison Club, a management union hall that has seen its membership plummeted to all-time lows.

The snobbish gin mill started sliding downhill when a paid fundraiser sponsored a cousin for membership, and, soon thereafter, without rhyme or reason, endorsed the new inductee as development “director” of mundane fudge night.

Do we really need another SoreLoserman glad-handing in the hangout?

Imagine Phil Prange’s sister, Catherine Hurtgen, and brother-in-law Nick Hurtgen’s mobile home with Illinois license plates parked on Martin Luther King Boulevard, while they’re imbibing inside the Madison Club and soaking up the ambience.

If Ervin’s rather obtuse idea ever gets implemented, unfashionably pinstriped Jim Pugh and James Buchen might have to move their Double Bubble venue to the Silver Dollar.

Maybe they’ll even embarrass tightwad insurer mouthpiece Eric Englund into buying an adult beverage.

This all began when state Revenue Secretary Roger Ervin advised the 4,000 members of Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce to fire its Madison-based senior staff members.

Envision his quaint suggestion that WMC staff do what's good for business, not what's good for WMC or one political party.

WMC President Jim Haney reacted with shock and awe that swiftly turned to dismay at Ervin’s impudence.