CODE RED: WHITE & BLUE

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This forum is one “where truth matters” in the battle for the heart and soul of the United States of America.

Check it out – CODE RED: WHITE & BLUE

State deficit? So what!

(H/T – Berry Laker)

It seems the Wisconsin DNR doesn’t care about the fact that there’s a huge budget shortfall that has to be dealt with. They’ve requested an increase of $27.3 million in their upcoming budget request.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is asking for a $27.3 million increase in its 2009-11 biennial budget, according to Department of Administration documents released this past week.

The Natural Resources Board approved the proposed budget in September.

In a memo to the board, DNR secretary Matthew Frank outlined the details of a proposed bottom line of $596.5 million for 2009-10 and $596.7 million for 2010-11, for a total of $1,193.2 billion agency budget.

That’s $27.3 million more than in 2007-09, of which Frank said $18.7 million represented the cost to continue current items.

“Of these amounts, about $231.6 million annually, or 39 percent, represents local assistance and debt service costs,” Frank wrote. “The remaining $365.1 million reflects department costs to provide services.”

These are tough economic times that are being faced, taxpayers have had to tighten their wallets when it comes to spending.  Apparently the DNR feels belt-tightening doesn’t apply to them.  But get this – the DNR secretary is trying to claim this is a restrained budget.

Frank told board members it was a restrained budget, reflecting both the state’s current fiscal climate and the Department of Administration’s budget instructions.

“When cost to continue is excluded, this budget reflects a 0.7 percent growth over base,” he wrote. “Even if standard cost to continue items are included, there is still only a 2.3 percent rate of growth over the 2008-09 base budget.”

Frank said the DNR was continuing to reduce staffing levels. The new budget would cut agency personnel by 3.36 full-time equivalent positions, reducing total staffing to 2,742.17 full-time equivalent positions.

Even within the context of self-control, Frank told the board the agency could still make progress on some of its most important environmental initiatives, particularly in trying to stem the spread of invasive species on land and water, in dealing with Wisconsin’s water quality and water quantity issues, in providing grants for dam repair and removal, in supporting conservation wardens’ efforts pertaining to snowmobile safety and education, in maintaining department properties, and in operating state parks and trails.

Whatever.  Ordinary taxpayers can’t exclude costs.  And they have to cut spending not increase it like your budget request does.  Here’s a novel idea – how about making the tough decision to actually make CUTS! 

But no instead there’s this -

In other budget areas, the DNR hopes to spend $1,118,700 more in each year of the biennium for its vehicle fleet.

“The Department requests $1,118,700 annually to address fleet rate increases caused by fuel price increases and significant increases in repair costs for fleet vehicles,” the agency analysis stated. “The increased vehicle repair costs relate to several factors, including inflationary increases for replacement parts as well as fuel surcharges added to the parts delivery. Additionally, in an effort to fully maximize each vehicle, the Department’s fleet includes various older, high mileage vehicles. These vehicles incur costlier repairs as they age which has also contributed to increased repair costs for the fleet.”

And this -

The budget also would allocate $73.7 million for land acquisition and $62.3 million for capital development. The capital development budget includes $1.9 million for a Wild Rose State Fish Hatchery Renovation Project, $17.6 million for work on the Southeast Region Headquarters/Service Center, $2.8 million for statewide fire control heavy unit drive-thru storage buildings for the Boscobel, Brule, Poynette, and Wausaukee ranger stations, $6.1 million for Rib Mt. State Park sewer, water, road and park entrance visitors station (funded by Stewardship borrowing), $2.7 million for the Governor Thompson State Park/Peshtigo State Forest (family campground, road construction, Woods Lake Beach and Caldron Falls day use facilities), $778,400 for the Black River State Forest Castle Mound Campground vehicle maintenance and equipment storage building, and $1.6 million for the statewide park entrance and visitors’ stations at Black River State Forest-Castle Mound Campground and Lake Kegonsa State Park.

Nice to see that the DNR feels the need to waste more money acquiring land and performing capital improvements during tough economic times. And what’s with that almost $2 million for the maintaining of vehicles?

BUt then again it’s just taxpayer money so who cares right?

First winter storm

Looks likes the Green Bay area is getting it’s first winter storm of the season.

WIZ022-038>040-048-049-301800-
/O.NEW.KGRB.WS.W.0007.081130T2100Z-081201T1200Z/
DOOR-OUTAGAMIE-BROWN-KEWAUNEE-WINNEBAGO-CALUMET-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF…STURGEON BAY…APPLETON…GREEN BAY…
ALGOMA…OSHKOSH…CHILTON
520 AM CST SUN NOV 30 2008

…WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 3 PM THIS AFTERNOON TO
6 AM CST MONDAY…

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN GREEN BAY HAS ISSUED A WINTER
STORM WARNING FOR SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW…WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM
3 PM THIS AFTERNOON TO 6 AM CST MONDAY.

THERE IS A CHANCE OF LIGHT SNOW THIS MORNING BUT THE ACCUMULATING
SNOW IS NOT EXPECTED UNTIL LATER THIS AFTERNOON AND THEN CONTINUE
INTO TONIGHT. BETWEEN 2 TO 5 INCHES OF TOTAL ACCUMULATION IS
EXPECTED BY EARLY MONDAY MORNING. NORTHERLY WINDS INCREASING TO
20 TO 30 MPH THIS EVENING WITH OVERNIGHT GUSTS TO 40 MPH WILL
CREATE CONSIDERABLE BLOWING AND DRIFTING OF THE SNOW.

On the plus side it appears the wind will be the bigger issue.

That doesn’t appear the case for later this week.

.DAYS TWO THROUGH SEVEN…MONDAY THROUGH SATURDAY

THERE IS A CHANCE OF LIGHT FREEZING RAIN OR SLEET ON TUESDAY
SOUTH OF A WAUSAU TO KEWAUNEE LINE. THE LIGHT MIXED PRECIPITATION
MAY CREATE SLICK ROADS…BRIDGES AND SIDEWALKS.

HAZARDOUS TRAVEL CONDITIONS ARE POSSIBLE AGAIN MID-WEEK AS ANOTHER
STORM SYSTEM CROSSES THE REGION. THE STORM HAS THE POTENTIAL TO
BRING A SIGNIFICANT SNOWFALL OF 6 INCHES OR MORE TO NORTHERN
WISCONSIN. IT IS STILL TOO EARLY TO PROVIDE A REASONABLE ESTIMATE
OF SNOWFALL AMOUNTS. BE SURE TO MONITOR LATER FORECASTS FOR
UPDATED INFORMATION.

Ah yes winter in Wisconsin.

Poinsettia sale today

This has to be quite the sight.  Over 100,000 poinsettias are on display and for sale today near Denmark.

Never underestimate the power of the poinsettia, especially when more than 100,000 of them greet the holidays.

They’re massing at Floral Plant Growers near Denmark to keep a date with thousands of shoppers who know the season’s here when the Denmark Lions team with the greenhouse for Wisconsin’s largest poinsettia sale.

The 34th annual event will take place from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 30 when the 20-acre greenhouse operation opens its doors to the public on this one day of the year. Santa Claus wouldn’t miss it — he’s scheduled to be on hand from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Floral Plant Growers is a major supplier to area retailers, including Home Depot, Menard’s, Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club and Stein Garden Centers. It partners with the Lions to raise money for projects in the Denmark community.

Last year, 2,500 visitors bought 6,000 plants.

Oh, don’t forget the family and the camera. A picture is worth 100,000 words in a Christmas card.

Wonder if Hallmark has considered putting a picture of them on a card?

The arrival of Advent

The Advent season is upon us.  For the next four weeks as Christians it is a time of preparation.  During this time we prepare for another celebration of our Savior’s birth while also focusing on His certain promise of return.  

I came across this great rendition of the Advent hymn “Prepare the Royal Highway” (LW #27) that is fitting:

Another great hymn as pointed out by Pastor Weedon is “Savior of the Nations” (LSB #332)

Thanksgiving song 2008

Yeah, yeah I know Thanksgiving is already past.  But hey it’s still Thanksgiving weekend and it’s Adam Sandler time.

Rickrolling Macy’s

(H/T – Owen)

Is there anything that can’t be rickrolled?

Gift Certificates for Abortions

(H/T – Reasonable Progressive via Badger Blogger via Berry Laker)

This is ludicrous. Just what is the world coming to when we now have Planned Parenthood gift certificates.

Gift certificates have become a popular holiday gift option, but a controversial new one, already has people talking.

For the first time, Planned Parenthood in Indiana is offering gift certificates. The organization said a big increase in calls and visits from newly unemployed and uninsured Hoosiers prompted what it calls the unusual, yet practical gift option.

“People are making really tough decisions about putting gas in their car and food on their table, so we know that many women especially put healthcare at the bottom of their list to do,” said Chrystal Struben-Hall, Vice President of Planned Parenthood of Indiana.

The certificates come in $25 increments. They can be used for everything from birth control to $58 examinations that include breast exams and pap tests. Men who receive healthcare at Planned Parenthood can use them too.

“They can be seen for sexually transmitted disease screenings, HIV tests and general prostate exams and those kinds of things,” said Struben-Hall.

But, but wait a minute. Planned Parenthood is synonymous with ABORTION. So the obvious question is can they be used for abortions? And the answer is … YES!

Some Hoosiers 24-Hour News 8 talked to asked if the gift certificates could be used towards abortions. The answer is yes. But, Planned Parenthood said that’s not the purpose of the gift certificates.

Struben-Hall said, “They really are intended for preventative healthcare. We decided not to put restrictions on the gift certificates so it’s for whatever people feel they need the services for most.”

Sorry buddy, it doesn’t matter what the intent is, the fact is you are allowing people to purchase gift certificates that could be used in paying for an abortion. That is disturbing and sick.

Erosion of Freedom – in Wisconsin

(H/T – Berry Laker)

Seems Wisconsin has a dirty little secret that allows the unelected in Madison to circumvent intent.

It’s been called Wisconsin’s dirty little secret. It most certainly is a skeleton in the democratic closet – a scandal if it ever gets out.

Well, it’s time to out it.

I’m talking about the state’s administrative rule process, by which – you may not know – the state’s bureaucracies have effectively staged a coup d’etat over our elected lawmakers. That enables unelected bureaucrats to countermand the intent of laws passed by elected officials.

So just what is an administrative rule?

Here’s the official state definition: “A rule is an agency policy that governs people’s rights or conduct and has the force of law. Agencies promulgate administrative rules in order to administer and enforce specific state laws and to implement general agency objectives.”

That’s partly right and partly wrong.

Administrative rules certainly have the force of law, and they certainly are “governing” people, but all too often these days the rules are not so much administering and enforcing specific statutes as they are creating new ones.

That’s right. Unelected bureaucrats are writing laws that govern our daily lives, and our elected lawmakers have little to say about it.

Here’s how the process works. Once the Legislature passes a law, the appropriate state agency ostensibly creates a rule by which to put it into effect.

For example, state statutes require the Department of Administration to issue bids for state construction projects. The administrative rule for that statute defines explicitly how those bids will be advertised, the timeframe for bidding, what the advertisements for proposals must contain, and it offers definitions for such things as the lowest qualified bidder.

In other words, it sets out how the department will actually implement the law so everybody knows the rules of the game.

Once the rule is promulgated, it’s submitted to the Legislature for review. After 30 calendar days, if there is no objection, the rules can be filed with the secretary of state and thus attain the force of law.

So far, so good.

Unfortunately, in Wisconsin, large state bureaucracies – and in particular the Department of Natural Resources, though that agency is by no means the sole culprit – have subverted the process.

What they have done is use the rulemaking process to make laws of their own desire – often times enacting regulations that directly contradict what lawmakers intended when they passed the legislation in the first place.

A perfect example is Act 118, the state’s so-called Job Creation Act that the Legislature passed to provide for a quicker, more streamlined waterway permitting process on all but the state’s most sensitive water bodies. Environmentalists immediately attacked the legislation and urged Gov. Jim Doyle to veto it. He signed it anyway.

Then, at the urging of the environmentalists, came the attempted administrative rule. It’s pretty clear what they wanted – a rule that would basically restore the previous law. They wanted the DNR to effectively repeal what lawmakers had passed and the governor had signed.

And the DNR obliged them by writing an emergency rule that excluded most water bodies from the more lenient permitting provisions. What they wrote was a bureaucratically divined law that would supersede the democratically enacted state statute.

Not only that but environmentalists were quite candid and proud that they were having an unelected bureaucracy undo the work of the elected Legislature.

The Sierra Club, for example, said the new rule was needed to “fill in gaps” in the statute, while Wisconsin Wildlife Federation president Jerry Knuth was even more blunt.

“DNR staff have recommended to the Board that they adopt a detailed set of emergency rules that restore many of the protective standards that were deleted from the statutes in Act 118,” Knuth said when the rules were proposed.

The key words are “restore many of the protective standards that were deleted from the statutes.”  In other words, they wanted the agency to repeal the offending portions of the act. They wanted the DNR to write a new law, which is exactly what DNR staff attempted to do.

In the end, they didn’t quite get away with it, but in many other cases they have, and they are continuing to use the rule process to write new laws.

To wit, in today’s edition, we report on a rule being promulgated to control invasive species. Among other things, it’s unconstitutional because it would give DNR thugs the right to engage in warrantless searches of our property any time they “believe” somebody is harboring an invasive species fugitive.

That’s another issue entirely, but in the rule we see the unelected bureaucrats once again trying to write their own laws.

Specifically, the rule would outlaw the transport of aquatic plants and animals, not just invasive aquatic plants and animals, and, as we report, the state’s Legislative Council has questioned this:

“The department should explain its authority to prohibit the transport of all aquatic plants and all animals on highways, instead of just the transport of invasive species, and the reconciliation of that authority with the more limited prohibition under [the statute],” the council stated.

The bottom line is, there is no state statute prohibiting the transport of all aquatic plants and animals.

Mind you, I’m not saying that the rule provision is bad or good. What I’m saying is, the Legislature should make the law, not the bureaucracy.

The reason bureaucracies attempt to make their own laws – and often get away with it – is because our state’s administrative rule process is outdated and backwards.

The problem is, once a rule is enacted, it’s very difficult for the Legislature to overturn. That’s the dirty little secret.

They can issue a temporary suspension, after which the rule takes effect, but blocking the rule completely requires both chambers to actually pass new legislation to do so, which must in turn be signed into law by the governor.

The burden is placed on the Legislature, in other words, to undo the machinations of the bureaucracy rather than on the bureaucracy to prove that its rules comport with legislative intent.

The process has been stood on its head, and we need to right it, as other states have done. Simply put, when a rule is sent to the Legislature after being promulgated, the rules review committee or the committee of jurisdiction for that agency should be able to simply veto the rule and have it die forever, with instructions to the agency to bring to the table something that fits with legislative intent. Period.

Surely, the Legislature should be able to simply assert its intent and directly veto the bureaucrats.

Full disclosure is required. Such a modification of the process will likely require a constitutional amendment.

That’s because, in state after state, courts have ruled that a direct legislative veto of an administrative rule violates the constitutional separation of powers between the branches of government.

It’s the Legislature’s duty to pass laws, in other words, and it’s the executive branch’s duty to administer and enforce those laws, and the rules they write to do so are none of the Legislature’s business, even if the rules subvert the intent of the legislation.

Hence, the reason lawmakers have to pass entirely new legislation to override a rule they directed to be written in the first place.

How about that kettle of fish? You can just see DNR officials yelling, “Yeah, it’s none of your business what laws we make!”

Not so fast, though. In other states, officials have said it is the people’s business what the bureaucrats do.

In those states, officials said, “Sure, we understand the constitutional principle of separation of powers, but we also understand that, in this case, the practical effect is to elevate an unelected bureaucracy over elected lawmakers. So we’re going to amend our constitution.”

And that’s exactly what they did, from Connecticut to Iowa to Michigan to New Jersey to South Dakota and beyond, to allow for direct legislative veto of an administrative rule.

And that’s what we should do here in Wisconsin.

For too long we have watched and let bureaucracies devour our democracy and take over our lives with absurd rules and regulations.

We have watched them grow to outrageous size. In some cases, as with the DNR, they have established their own police powers, their own courts.

Now they are writing laws, too. It’s their dirty little secret.

It’s time to expose it, and clean up Madison with the openness of true legislative democracy.

Right on the Money

(H/T – Save the GOP)

Another conservative, Governor Sanford (SC) gets it.