Why I Hate the Immigration Issue

Can be summed up in this Dummocrats post.

I think most people mistake this as some sort of race/national identity issue. It isn't. Most Americans today are proud that this country is a destination, and most are proud that they themselves are a product of immigration. But they do want our citizens to prove they really want to be here. In the 1800's, being willing to risk disease or death over a long trans-oceanic journey was pretty good proof. Today, standing in line to earn citizenship is a much safer stand in for most Americans. If you opened up immigration for unskilled labor and fast tracked the citizenship process, this would barely be an issue because most Americans would find this abundantly fair. What most Americans DON'T want is for this country to be an escape hatch for another country's undesireables, and I find that to be abundantly fair.

Journolist is...

...the legitimate media scandal that your average voter will never be aware of, and would be outraged about if they were.

OMG! We're All Going To Die From (Fill In The Blank)

The Plague!

Nothing quite like an oldie but a goody. Next year, how you are going to die from leprosy. Natch, medicine-resistant leprosy!

A Story The Milwaukee Media Should Look At

Is the Wosinski family who were injured in the parking structure collapse and who lost a family friend in the incident the same Wosinski family that lost a teenage son in car accident in December that also claimed three other teens? If so, what an awful 7 months for that family.

Your Tasteless Future

I'm watching Nightline's "Assault on Salt." Ever notice the attacks on what we consume run in cyclical patterns? Next up on the cycle? I'm guessing eggs. It's been a while since we've trashed you, tasty, tasty breakfast food.

Teachers

I have a long screed about teachers bubbling in me like a cauldron, but I'm weighing the wisdom of writing it. Brief synopsis: 1. While I know several very good teachers who answered their calling because of a passion for it, I know many more who went into teaching only because they'd failed in other areas in college, and as such, I believe the overall quality of our teachers is dropping precipitously. 2. There is no profession in the world that enjoys playing the martyr quite as much as teaching (my apologies to the teachers I do know who actually do make real personal sacrifices). 3. Selfishness is so rampant in teaching that I think it may actually be challenging the the selfishness of the sales profession, where selfishness is actually an asset.

Keep the Powder Dry, Righties

Just a word of wisdom to my fellow friends on the right: Intellectually, I get why some of you are grumbling about the Obama extracted $20 billion compensation fund from BP. But this is the wrong battle of liberty at the wrong time. In fact, at this point, $20 billion might be a bargain for BP. In that light, this may be less a shake down by Obama and more a sweet deal beneficial to BP, which is probably why they readily agreed to it.

Immigration and Legislation

It is becoming clear to me that people are fighting the wrong fights on immigration. Many of those who want unfettered immigration would accomplish much more if they fought for legislation to expand and streamline legal immigration (not amnesty) for unskilled workers. Many of those opposed to illegal immigration would drop their opposition in the face of a controlled, systematic way of bringing responsible new citizens, skilled or unskilled, into the nation. Think a modern "Ellis Island" of Arizona or California or Texas.

Internet Kill Switch Must Die

This is an awful, awful idea:

The legislation would grant the president emergency powers to seize control of or even shut down portions of the Internet during times of national emergency.

It's been dubbed as an Internet "kill switch" the president could flip. However, the idea behind it is not new. A draft Senate proposal that CNET obtained in August allowed the White House to "declare a cybersecurity emergency," and another from Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) would have explicitly given the government the power to "order the disconnection" of certain networks or Web sites.

This is too much power in the hands of people that cannot be trusted with it.

Genius Matt Simmons Says Deep Water Oil Exploration Is Bad

Okay. But here's my question. What 'green' energy sources is genius Matt Simmons invested in?

Never trust a so-called expert until you know what his/her retirement is banked on.

Oil Spill Question

Has the Obama administration been pressuring other oil companies to share their expertise in shutting down a deep water oil gusher? If not, why haven't they been doing so? I've seen nothing about either BP or the Obama administration reaching out for any and all expertise in this matter. This is the ultimate question whose answer will decide whether this administration is doing its job to protect the Gulf Coast and beyond.

You Be The Judge

Which is Grizzly Adams, and which is Milwaukee Brewer Corey Hart?

Dumbest Headline of the Year Nominee

Currently on the Yahoo home page:

Wall Street overhaul might not prevent next financial crisis

Good call, rocket scientists. Because all regulations like this do is prevent the last crisis from exactly repeating itself, which is unlikely, anyway, since major players learn from the previous crisis what pot holes to avoid. The next crisis will be based on something very much unlike the circumstances that led to the last one.

Helluva a Job, Barracky

It's time the media starts taking a critical look at the Obama administration's place in the BP spill. Whether things like this have any legs remains to be seen.

"Dispersant"

A "dispersant," a substance similar in nature to dish soap, is currently being used to try to break up the BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast. Environmentalists are rather silent on its usage, even though it might be harmful in and of itself.

I'm all for the use of this dispersant. Anything to try to mitigate the environmental damage is worth trying in my opinion. However, I am not naive. If the dispersant proves harmful itself, environmentalists will be crawling out of the woodwork to criticize it (or rather, BP, although they will leave the Obama administration blameless).

I have news for those environmentalists who have 20/20 hindsight: Now is the time to criticize. If you do not criticize the use of dispersants now, you do not have any standing to criticize it later. You have just as little information on the effects of these chemicals as anyone else right now. In an effort to stem damage to the environment of the Gulf Coast, this product is being used, even though the information is incomplete. If you are silent now, you are complicit in its use and nobody really wants to hear from your cowardly butts later.

In Re A Leinenkugel Senate Run

So, earlier this week I listened to Charlie Syke's interview of Dick Leinenkugel after he announced his Republican run against Russ Feingold for senate. I got the feeling that Charlie was a semi-sympathetic interviewer, because while Leinenkugel did not come off well in the first 2/3 of the interview, I think Sykes could have ended his campaign before it even started.

I'm not sure who is in charge of the Leinenkugel campaign, but they had better do a hell of a lot better job of crafting a story for their candidate or he is going to avoid getting his butt kicked in the Republican primary. And it has to start by openly repudiating his old boss, Jim Doyle.

At this juncture, I'm not sure who I'd vote for in the primary, but Leinenkugel did not acquit himself particularly well out of the gates. If I had no knowledge of the family, I'd probably be on the popular band wagon on this side of the aisle that is constantly repudiating him. But I remained bothered by the fact that if Feingold does not lose in this year of vulnerability for all Dems, I am convinced he will own his seat until he chooses to leave the Senate. Yet this crew is the best the Republican party can muster.

Obama Administration Politically Incompetent

Okay, for a moment, let's disregard any arguments over the right/wrong of tax credits, period. Instead, let's look at the political component of creating one. When you create a credit, as President, it is in your best interest to trumpet them from the mountain top. People like to keep more of their money. Plus, they need to know about it or it costs you a lot of money at the IRS. The Obama administration has failed at this basic attempt at politics:

Schedule M is the big tax credit of 2009 that's really easy to miss.

After figuring deductions, calculating taxes, and recording estimated tax payments, the exhausted taxpayer will come to line 63 of IRS Form 1040. It has an innocuous description – "Making work pay and government retiree credits" – but potentially a big payout: $400 ($800 if married filing jointly).

Most taxpayers will be able to claim it.

Last year, in an attempt to reinvigorate the economy, the White House cut the amount of withholding for workers and sent out a onetime $250 payment to retirees?

That's money already in Americans' pockets. But unless they fill out Schedule M, they'll pay it back in taxes (at least initially).

About 4 percent of tax filers so far failed to send along the new schedule.

C'mon. Really, Obama administration? Is it that embarrassing to Democrats to let people keep some more of their own money that you can't blare out to them that you let them keep more of their own money? Is it because you are too embarrassed to tell people you are taking a little less of their money while spending much, much more, or is it because you are that incompetent?

Prediction For The '10 Republicans

Republicans are going to have a huge year at the polls. And then over the next 2-8 years, we will learn that many of the Republicans who won by spoon feeding the Tea Party what it wanted to hear didn't really mean much of what they said, and an all new resentment of the Republican party will set in.

The Leinenkugel Question

Okay, if anyone in Wisconsin is still reading me, I have an honest question for you. Let's say Tommy Thompson does not challenge Russ Feingold for Senate, and reports that Dick Leinenkugel will against him as a Republican are true. I will give you all the fact that Leinenkugel's politics are questionable given the fact that he voluntarily served Governor Droopy Dog. But even if he is a left of center Republican, he still might be the only guy not named Thompson who has a chance in hell of putting up a challenge to Feingold. So my question is this: Would you rather six more years of Feingold because Leinenkugel isn't a died in the wool conservative, or would you rather accept his flaws for a less radically liberal Senator from Wisconsin?

Tommy Thompson Might Not Run For Senate?!?!

Shocking, I say! Okay, I'm being sarcastic. Maybe I'm just the naive observer of Wisconsin politics, but Tommy always struck me as the guy that did not need power, but needed to be wanted and loved. This appealed to both, especially the "being wanted". But once you win, you aren't wanted anymore. And once you have to make votes and politically move and shake in Washington, you risk the love that you spent so much time winning as Governor of Wisconsin. He may still surprise me tomorrow, but only if he announces that he's running. I'll be toiling away at my job about a mile away, but I'm surprisingly not interested in heading down to King Street to see what he has to say.