New Nuclear Reactor Approved For First Time In 34 Years

Great. Let’s hope for more.

It’s been 34 years—and several nuclear accidents later—but a divided federal panel on Thursday licensed a utility to build nuclear reactors in the U.S. for the first time since 1978.

Obligated to Help?

This is an interesting story.

Coleman likely suffered a stroke and fell out of bed, then lay on the floor for two days, getting no help from her sister or nephew, a criminal complaint charged.

The Kings are scheduled to face a preliminary hearing in the case on Thursday before Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington.

But Veronica King’s lawyer, Marcus Berghahn, wrote in court papers filed Monday that the two charges against her that are related to Coleman’s death should be dismissed because they are based solely on a failure on Veronica King’s part to prevent Coleman’s death. State law only recognizes a failure to act as the basis for a crime under certain circumstances involving defined special relationships, he wrote.

In 2008, Berghahn wrote, King suffered a stroke that left her unable to care for herself and incompetent to make important decisions. Coleman was appointed as her guardian, a role she still had at the time of her death. As a ward of Coleman, he wrote, King had no legal duty to act on Coleman’s behalf.

Under Wisconsin law, Berghahn wrote, “there is no legal duty that compels the subject of a guardianship to act for the person who is charged with caring for her, even if ward and guardian are sisters. Acting may be a moral or ethical imperative, but all the same, it is not a legal duty.”

Clearly, as a human beings, Veronica King and her son are disgusting and immoral. They should have helped because that’s what decent people do. But as a matter of law, were they obligated to help? Let’s say you’re driving and see someone lying immobile on the side of the road, are you obligated to stop and help? I think the answer is “no” in both cases, even if you should as a decent human being. But the law isn’t generally set up to force people to be decent.

Unions Want to Own Next Governor

This is just stunning.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Wednesday that Democratic candidate Kathleen Falk agreed to the veto promise. The other announced Democratic candidate, Kathleen Vinehout, said she would work to avoid the threat of a veto to restore bargaining rights.

Sen. Tim Cullen, who considered a run against Walker in a recall election, told the Journal Sentinel he was asked by leaders of public employee unions if he would veto any state budget that didn’t restore collective bargaining. “I said I could not make that promise and I did not think any serious candidate for governor could or should make that commitment,” he said of a veto of the state budget. “It’s a $60 billion document.”

Senator Cullen is right, of course, but Falk isn’t a serious candidate. This goes far beyond promising to work to restore collective bargaining priveleges. This is a promise to employ a specific tactic to go about doing it. As for the tactic of vetoing the entire state budget to attempt to force the legislature to bend to Falk’s will, just think of the priorities there. Falk is saying that she is willing to sacrifice every single priority for every citizen of Wisconsin for the benefit of the small minority of people who are members of the public eployee unions. Wow. Education? Nope, public employee unions come first. Law enforcement? Not unless the public employee unions get theirs. BadgerCare? You get the idea. Falk is pledging to ignore every single priority from every single Wisconsinite until 5% of the population who are in the public unions get their way.

Stunning.

On the bright side, this actually plays for conservatives quite well. Under Wisconsin law, if they don’t pass a budget, then everything continues to operate under the old budget. That means no tax increases. No spending increases. I’d prefer spending cuts, but I’lltake a spending freeze over whatever budget a Governor Falk would be willing to sign.

WEAC Backs Falk

Well, that was quick.

Former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk has won the endorsement of one of the state’s most powerful labor unions.

Two sources said the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state’s largest teachers union, will announce soon that it is backing Falk in the likely recall election against Gov. Scott Walker.

Looks like WEAC is backing their horse early and trying to discourage any other candidates - particularly Mayor Barrett - from stepping forward.

Vinehout Jumps In

Woohoo!

State Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, who last week filed to run for the office, formally announced today her campaign for guv.

Vinehout joints former Dane County Exec Kathleen Falk as the only two formally announced Dem candidates in the field to take on Gov. Scott Walker in an expected recall election.

She said in a statement the state needs “a fresh start and a new attitude in Wisconsin politics and government.”

“We need a governor who will lead with self restraint; who will be clear and open about her intentions; who will respect Wisconsin’s traditions of good government; who supports and takes pride in our schools; who values the skills workers bring to their jobs. We need a governor who wants to solve problems, not score political points,” she said. “I pledge to be that kind of governor.”

Vinehout has had an eventful, if short, time in Wisconsin politics. Remember the rambling poem she wrote about her opponent in 2006? Or her complaining that she couldn’t afford health insurance while loaning $9,000 to her campaign?

Ahhhh… good times.

Wisconsin Dead Last in Donating to GOP Presidential Candidates

Shocking?

Not only did Democrat President Barack Obama outraise the entire 2012 Republican presidential field through Dec. 31, 2011, $582,000 to $529,000, but a Smart Politics analysis also found Wisconsin to be dead last nationally in per capita donations of $200 or more to GOP candidates.

Not at all. I suspect that I am like most people in that there’s only so much time and money I’m willing and able to fork over to support political campaigns. With the 2010 election, the 2011 recalls, the 2012 recalls, and all of the other local races in the past two years, we’ve been in campaign mode in Wisconsin 100% of the time for over a year now. For most Republicans in Wisconsin, keeping Walker in office is just more important now than worrying about the presidential primary,

Cone of Silence

This is crappy.

Nearly all of Wisconsin’s Republican state lawmakers signed an agreement not to comment publicly about redistricting discussions while new G.O.P.-friendly maps were being drafted. The pact was included in documents released in a lawsuit challenging the maps’ constitutionality.

Redistricting is an overtly politcal act. While I think it acceptable for the party in power to craft constitutional districts that may favor them, it is deplorable that such a veil of secrecy should be employed.

GAB Limits Challenges

Ummm...

Wisconsin’s elections agency ruled on Tuesday that it would not accept help checking recall petitions from groups including the tea party organizations GrandSons of Liberty and We the People of the Republic.

Government Accountability Board Director Kevin Kennedy said the board would not change its methods in the middle of the process and could not accept such information from sources other than the targets of recalls.

So let me get this straight… if I find my name fraudently signed to a petition, I don’t have any grounds to challenge it? I have absolutely no recourse to prevent the theft of my identity? That ain’t right.

One would take note that the GAB, in every circumstance, has taken the position most in favor of fraud and not in securing the integrity of our electoral process. If one is to err, one would hope that it’s usually on the side of integrity.

Fitzgerald to Challenge Enough Signatures to Stop Recall

Now we’ll see what the GAB does...

Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald says he plans on challenging enough signatures on recall petitions to stop any election.

Fitzgerald said Tuesday he will also make a number of other challenges, including arguing that newly drawn legislative boundaries should have been in play for the collection of the signatures.

Entire School Staff Replaced

Wow. Now that’s a response.

Updated at 10:25 p.m. ET: The Los Angeles Unified School District is replacing the entire staff of Miramonte Elementary School following the arrest of two teachers on lewd conduct charges last week, Superintendent John Deasy told parents at a meeting Monday night, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Positions will be filled by qualified teachers and other workers already on a placement or rehiring list, the Times report stated. But the displacement of the current staff could be temporary, according to the report.

I didn’t say it was a good response, but it certainly got everyone’s attention.

70,000 Approved

It seems that the DOJ is catching up with demand.

WAUSAU (WAOW)—The Wisconsin Department of Justice has been swamped with requests for concealed carry permits. Since the law went into effect in November, the DOJ reports it received over 80-thousand permit requests and approved nearly 70,000.

“no mere exercise in payback”

Charles Lane in the Washington Post nails it.

For public-sector unions, the Walker recall is no mere exercise in payback. The unions, upon which Democrats depend heavily for funding and foot soldiers, say Walker must be ousted and his reforms reversed for the sake of the middle class. Progressive values — even democracy itself — are in mortal danger.

Actually, the opposite is true. The threat to such progressive goals as majority rule, transparent government, a vibrant public sector and equality comes from public-sector unionism.

I had supposed that Walker’s victory in 2010, along with the victory of Republicans in both houses of the state legislature, entitled the people’s choices to make policy until the next election.

I had not realized that Wisconsin’s voters were allowed to elect representatives to do everything except change the rules on collective bargaining.

“But Walker never campaigned on curtailing union rights!” his opponents cry. What rule of American democracy says that public officials may do only what they explicitly promised before taking office, and nothing else? By that logic, President Obama could be impeached because he opposed an individual mandate to buy health insurance during the campaign, then supported it in office.

Of course, collective bargaining in the public sector is inherently contrary to majority rule. It transfers basic public-policy decisions — namely, the pay and working conditions that taxpayers will offer those who work for them — out of the public square and behind closed doors. Progressive Wisconsin has a robust “open meetings” law covering a wide range of government gatherings except — you guessed it — collective bargaining with municipal or state employees. So much for transparency.

Even worse, to the extent that unions bankroll the campaigns of the officials with whom they will be negotiating — and they often do — they sit on both sides of the table.

Read the whole thing.

Not All Recoveries Created Equal

Ah yes...

The economy grew at 4.5% in 1983, with a few quarters of growth north of 8%. In 2011, meanwhile, the economy grew just 1.7%.

In just one month—September 1983—the economy added more than a million jobs. For the full year, the economy added almost 3.5 million jobs, a trend that continued into 1984, an election year in which Reagan captured 49 states in a landslide victory.

Obama can claim job growth of 1.8 million in 2011. A welcome comeback, but still tepid by comparison.

Looking ahead to 2012, Obama could replicate the 243,000 jobs created in January over each of the next 11 months and still not approach Reagan’s total for 1984 of 3.9 million.

Eat More Lizard

Yum.

Puerto Rico, plagued by iguanas for years, is taking a violent stand against the ubiquitous reptiles.

The government is proposing an iguana eradication project that would both eliminate the long-time nuisances, and bolster the territory’s lackluster economy by exporting the reptiles’ meat for as much as $6 a pound.

“That is a lot more than chicken,” said Daniel Galan Kercado, secretary of the Department of Natural Resources. “It has great economic potential.

The reptiles have cost the U.S. territory hundreds of thousands of dollars annually by sunbathing on San Juan’s airport runways and disrupting traffic; causing power outages by building nests near power plants and wrecking building foundations by burrowing holes underneath them.

Norovirus Outbreak in Dane County

I blame Scott Walker.

An unusual string of norovirus outbreaks has hit Dane County, including a suspected new outbreak of the foodborne illness in a church group, a health official said Monday.