O Christmas Tree

By Jeff Simpson

Rep. Kremer and Sen. nASS, fresh off teaming up to bully LGQBT children in our state, the disasterous duo have decided to team up again.

Their target this time is fire regulations and safety.

State and local governments would be prohibited from banning live Christmas trees in churches under a bill two Republican lawmakers began circulating Tuesday even as fire officials sounded warnings about how quickly trees can ignite.

Under the bill, the state Department of Public Safety and Professional Standards as well as municipal governments would be forbidden from passing any rules or ordinances prohibiting the seasonal placement of Christmas trees in the state Capitol rotunda or in a church. Trees in the rotunda and churches would be presumed to be safe during fire inspections, stripping inspectors of their ability to remove the trees.

We know that Christmas trees can burn quicker than a Scott Walker campaign promise when they get older ....

According to a National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) report, U.S. fire departments responded to more than 200 home structure fires annually from 2002 to 2005 that began with Christmas trees. Each year fires occurring during the holiday season injure 2,600 individuals and cause over $930 million in damage, according to the United States Fire Administration.

Of course while looking for sponsors, Robin Vos was eager to sign up:

"The last thing we need is for bureaucrats to play the Grinch in every church in Wisconsin at Christmas," said Rep. Vos. "This common sense legislation keeps the Christmas spirit alive and well without affecting safety 

Nothing says keep the Christmas spirit alive like a church buring to the ground, as long as it is done in the name of Jesus!

Van Attacks Local Control

By Jeff Simpson

The Big Government Republicans are at it again.   This time Rep. Tom Weatherston (R- No one has ever heard of ) and Sen. Van Waaard (R- had to have his senate seat rigged to win) are drafting a bill that dictates to local school board exactly how they have to fill open seats.  

Van  " everyone should have guns in schools" Wanggaard, pleaded his case that this bill is not political, nor is there an agenda behind it.   Then followed up his stement with a political speech and an agenda behind it.   After promising it was not a slam on the teacher's union, proceeded to slam the teacher's union.

“This bill is not a union issue, this is not a slam on Racine Unified,” he said. “This is just a correction in state law.”
Wanggaard’s office issued a brief statement explaining that “this proposal fills a vacant school board seat and breaks a 35-time deadlock on the school board – that is all. There is no ‘hidden agenda,’…it’s time for the Racine Teachers Unions to recognize that education is about student learning and not about protecting their fiefdoms.”

There is a reason they had to slice and dice districts up.  These people are not only unelectable in a fair race, they are virtually unemployable in the private sector.  

Urban Irony

Bruce Murphy of Urban Milwaukee had published a post last week in which he laments the Teapublican-controlled legislature's attacks on local control.  He has a fairly thorough list of the bigger attacks including issues like the regulation of cell phone towers and billboards as well as things like residency requirements.

Murphy sums things up well with this paragraph:

But this legislature has shown, time and again, that it will roll over for special interests even if means limiting the powers of local government. As a legislative analysis published by the League of Wisconsin Municipalities put it, the budget bill passed this year “reflects a lack of understanding or recognition of the key role municipalities play in job creation and the state’s economic recovery, and at worse, represents a calculated attack on home rule.”

This is all true and I have no umbrage with what he has written.

But I do take offense by the one special interest and the one attack of local control that Murphy failed to mention, which diminishes the impact of an otherwise powerful piece.

He failed to include Chris Abele spending money hand over fist and having his county executive office staff in Madison lobbying to pass Act 14, which greatly diminished the representative democracy of Milwaukee County government and gave Abele an imbalance of power, opening the door for the gross incompetence and corruption that we are already seeing with Abele's administration.  Two of the people benefiting from Abele's largess were State Representatives Joe Sanfelippo and Dale Kooyenga.

Furthering the fact that this power grab is indeed a removal of local control, the law also forbids the county to have any other referendums outside of the red herring one Abele insisted on which decides if the Board will be further hindered by being forced into a part-time status.

Needless to say, Murphy omitted this key example of the state legislature taking away local control because he supported it in this case, to the point of misrepresenting the facts and omitting key pieces of information in his efforts to assist Abele's power grab.

Because of the Murphy's support for the power grab, it makes his complaint of the loss of local control ring hollow.