Badger Blogger

Justice Jon Wilcox has announced that he will not seek reelection when his term is up in 2007. Wilcox has been a good Conservative justice and will be missed on the bench.

We now have about one year before the election for his replacement. It is extremely important that Conservatives find a strong candidate for this position. I know Jeff Wagner has said in the past that he doesn’t want to run for office again, but I he would be great for the position (and I could stop writing in his name for all of the uncontested judicial races). C’mon Jeff, we need you!

I hope that we can get some strong Conservative law experts to help us here, I am thinking that at least people like Jeff Wagner, Paul Bucher and J.B. Van Hollen could at least give us some guidance, as they would be in a position to at least know of some good possibilities.

WisPolitics.com
Justice Jon P. Wilcox will retire from the Wisconsin Supreme Court when his current 10-year term ends in August 2007. He makes the announcement today, more than a year before the April 2007 election for the seat, to clear the way for those interested in becoming candidates in this statewide race.

“I have thoroughly enjoyed my 37 years of public service,” Wilcox said. “My term will end about one month before my 71st birthday.”

His years of service include 15 years on the Wisconsin Supreme Court and 13 years as a circuit court judge in Waushara County; one year as a family court commissioner; six years as a state representative in the Wisconsin Legislature; and two years as an officer in the U.S. Army.

Sounds like Falk will make it official and announce a run against Peg the lush. I guess Falk, Doyle & co. aren’t heading the warning from AFSCME.

Boots & Sabers: Falk to Challenge Lautenschlager
This is about as surprising as Doyle vetoing a Republican bill.

• Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk is expected to formally enter the race for attorney general next week, possibly as early as Monday, according to Democratic sources who spoke on condition of anonymity.

  The move would end months of speculation over whether Falk would take the rare move of challenging an incumbent member of her own party - Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager.

I agree with Owen’s analysis, go check it out.

Wisconsin’s Public Employee Union, one of the most powerful Democratic special interest groups, has written a letter to the Democratic leadership that is urging Kathleen Falk to run in a Democratic primary against Peg Lautenschlager. The union is making is crystal clear that they oppose this move. WisPolitics has posted the letter in full, go read it and you will see that AFSCME is ready to make any A.G. primary into a real Democratic blood bath.

WisPolitics.com: AFSCME Council 24: Letter to Rep. Kreuser
Things must be going well for Democrats in the State Assembly and across the great state of Wisconsin. Or perhaps it is simply a relief for ten Assembly Democrats — including those who call themselves “leaders” — to turn their attention away from the sorry state of their own ever-shrinking minority. How else could a sane person explain your public attack on the state’s most courageous Democratic elected official, a woman who has been nothing but a powerful voice for justice and a passionate, consistent defender of the rights of average Wisconsin citizens?

Is your own house in such good order that you can spend precious energy throwing rocks at your neighbor’s, which is home to a leader who has a clear vision of what it means to fight — against all odds — for what is right? Are you embarrassed by her courage in overcoming cancer while showing more energy for the fight than your entire toothless caucus combined?

It doesn’t help with the Governor knows he needs vote fraud to win.

JS Online: Progress slow in voting reforms
A year after Wisconsin’s problem-plagued 2004 presidential election - one that revealed breakdowns at nearly every level - officials have laid out a host of solutions, but few of them have been adopted, even though another high-turnout election is 12 months away.

And a statewide voter list, billed as something that will vastly improve the process, is behind schedule and expected to miss the Jan. 1 federal deadline to be in place.

Meanwhile, a state-federal probe into voter fraud in Milwaukee is continuing, even as Democrats fight Republican efforts to require a photo ID.

That battle has become the focal point in the Legislature, though both sides acknowledge that other reforms are needed to fix a battered system, in which voter confidence has been shaken.

My parents in West Central Wisconsin have had to deal with these pesky critters for the past several years, they get literally thousands of these things a day. They look like the common lady bug, but they bite and stink of you crush them, and other animals and birds will not eat them, so they have no natural enemy here. In areas where these things are common, people literally have to vacuum these things up several times a day. They work themselves into the woodwork and when the house gets warm, they come out all winter long, a real pest!

JS Online: Time For Beetlemania
Get ready to be bugged.

Wisconsin’s warm and dry summer was kind to the multicolored Asian ladybeetle, and state conservation officials said Tuesday that they expect the little spotted creatures to begin massing in large numbers after the first freeze.

Last year’s relatively wet summer kept the beetle population lower, but this year, the beetles will make their fall debut in bigger numbers, said Linda Williams, a forest health expert with the Department of Natural Resources. The beetles are susceptible to a fungal disease, which is more prevalent in wetter years, Williams said.

We have GOT to get this law changed! Why are our legislators still dragging their feet?

JS Online: Fired-officer pay put at $500,000 this year
Milwaukee taxpayers can expect to fork over at least $500,000 in wages and benefits this year to fired police officers appealing their terminations, a city official told state legislators Wednesday.

The fired officers remain on the payroll under a 25-year-old law that applies only to Milwaukee police. The law’s price tag is hampering the city’s effort to hire officers faster to combat homicide and other violent crime, said Jennifer Gonda, senior legislative fiscal manager for the city.

“For every dollar the city spends on an officer appealing their discharge, there is one less dollar to spend putting officers on the street,” Gonda told the Assembly Committee on Corrections and the Courts, which held a hearing on a bill to abolish the practice but did not vote on it.

My past coverage of this isue goes back to April when we learned that the officers that beat Frank Jude Jr. were still on the payroll, they can be found here and here

Check today’s column for more details on Katrina evacuees, they begin arriving today. Some 400 will reach the Salvation Army’s Camp Wonderland today.

Time to roll up our sleeves and roll out the red carpet folks, and plan for this to be a long term project, these people will be coming with literally the clothes on their back and noting else. Let’s make things as comfortable as we can.

Go read the whole article, it is worth it!

JS Online: Kenosha County camp, fair park prepare for evacuees
As volunteers unloaded cars filled with donations and stacked clothing destined for the backs of people who have lost everything to Hurricane Katrina, Salvation Army Maj. Paul Smith looked around a Kenosha County camp and sighed.

“In effect, we’re setting up a small town here,” Smith said. “These people have lost everything.”

As many as 400 Louisianans could arrive today at Camp Wonderland, near Paddock Lake, with many more expected in Milwaukee and elsewhere throughout the state.