Appleton WI 2009 Tea Party – Video

This is awesomely done with photos from the Appleton Tea Party.

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Says it all. Next up an Independence Day Tea Party? Stay tuned.

Another Tea Party and more

Kudos to the local Appleton paper for interviewing Jim Steinke, organizer of the hugely successful Appleton Tea Party.  A wide range of topics were covered.

Jim Steineke put on a party last week to give a voice to those who think government is spending too much of our money.

His Tea Party rally Wednesday in Appleton drew a crowd that by some estimates topped 2,000. Steineke, the Vandenbroek town chairman and an Outagamie County supervisor, said Tuesday that he wanted to provide an outlet for people who are increasingly dissatisfied with the direction of the federal government and show them that they can make a difference in pushing for change.

What Jim wanted to accomplish with the Tea Party.

Being in local government, I’ve seen people become detached from their governments, whether it’s local, state or federal. They’ve kind of drifted away. They don’t feel like their voice can make an impact. So this event was a way to show people that we can all come together, we can have one voice on an issue. I think people have finally gotten to the point where they want to force their elected officials to start listening. They’re real interested in getting involved in their government because they can see it spinning out of control. They see themselves losing the kind of America they grew up in and they’re nervous about it.

The overall idea behind the event was to gather as many like-minded people together as we could, people who are frustrated with the direction of the country. That’s not just the direction of the country in the last couple months. It’s over the last few years. These people are frustrated and they want their government back. So we wanted to gather all these people in one place and show the elected officials out there that, hey, there is a big contingent involved that’s concerned about the direction and want to change it.

The central issue of the last Tea Party – Lack of accountability with government spending and taxes.

Overall, that was the main focus of our event. It seems like, every time you open up the paper, it’s one billion-dollar bailout after another. There just doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of accountability. They seem to be continually tossing money at issues without any real results and without any real accountability. They talk a good game, that there’s going to be accountability and there’s going to be follow-up, but I just don’t think we can believe it.

The Appleton Tea Party was a starting point.

This shouldn’t be looked at as, we made our point and now we’ll quietly file away. I think it’s real important to capitalize off of people’s frustration and continue that momentum and continue to build a coalition of people who are willing to stand up, who are willing to write letters to their elected officials and make calls.

I think the big point we want to focus on is it’s a good start. From the people we had give their e-mail addresses, we essentially figured about 1,500 people. From that, we’re going to try to build a broader coalition.

These days, I think the reason people don’t get involved is, one, they don’t feel officials are listening, but, two, it’s hard. It’s a lot of work to research these bills, see what’s before the state or federal government. So what I’m going to try to do is get out and do all that background for them. Once we get this coalition together, give them the e-mails. Tell them, “This is before the state Legislature. This is before the federal government. You might want to know about it.” And if they’re interested, pass it along and make it easy for them to contact their legislators. Make it easy as possible for them to stay involved.

Attention Congressman Kagen and those who believe in continuing to lead this country down it’s current path: another Tea Party is in the works!

Yeah, there’s actually been a big call for another one here in the Appleton area. So tentatively, we’re looking at on or before July 4. They’re doing some more nationally around that time as well. So we’re looking to build off this one.

And more than Tea Parties is in the works.

We’ve already created a Facebook group and we’re on Twitter. We’re going to start building off this, getting together some smaller groups to talk about issues and talk about what’s next and how to move forward. There’s going to be more organization. The first event was trying to get all these people all in one place and then, from there, we can go to building some more organization.

Rebutting the misconception being painted by the MSM and others on the left that the Tea Party movement is bashing only President Obama. And that they are right-wing funded.

I think that’s the way some people are trying to paint this movement and, honestly, I can only speak for our event. We were strictly nonpartisan. There were five or six speakers and every single one of them mentioned both parties as the problem. That’s not always the way it comes out. We can’t have control over every single person in the crowd. There were some anti-Obama signs and things like that. Well, that’s the nature of it. He’s the top guy right now. But when I was talking alone, I mentioned the fact that this was both a Republican problem and a Democratic problem, and a Washington problem. It’s not just one party or the other. Both parties have been in control the last couple of years. Both parties have screwed this up.

So at any opportunity that I have to talk about this with the groups that we’re organizing, I tell people it is a nonpartisan thing. Everybody should feel welcome here. If you’re concerned about the spending, if you’re concerned about your kids’ future and what it’s going to hold for them, these are groups for you. Whether you’re a Democrat, a Republican or an independent, we’re all there for the same reason.

It is a struggle getting that out there because there is a perception that these Tea Parties are funded by right-wing groups. If they are, I never got the check (laughs). What little we did have to pay for it came out of my own pocket.

And just to re-iterate the point for those that continue to miss it. The Appleton Tea Party was a NON-PARTISAN event.

That was my main goal in this whole thing, to make it nonpartisan. I told people when I asked them to talk that that’s the way it was going to be. I didn’t want anybody getting up there, saying, “Democrats are evil, Republicans are great and we should all vote Republican.” That’s not the way we wanted to do it. It was strictly about the policies and the issues. I think we accomplished it.

There was one comment from one of the speakers that was pulled out from the speech that made it look bad. But overall, every other speech, and even that speaker, took both parties to task for their failures.

Nice to see that the local Appleton paper decided to do a follow-up and not just ignore the Tea Party.

Wednesday Hero 04/22/09

Operations Specialist 3rd Class Leonel Yanez

Operations Specialist 3rd Class Leonel Yanez (Right), from Huntington Park, Calif., monitors a radar screen in the Combat Direction Center aboard the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74). John C. Stennis is on a scheduled six-month deployment to the western Pacific Ocean.

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

Lake Delton’s rebirth

This is fabuluous news.

The four pontoon boats moored at the dock outside Lake Delton Watersports; the once-again aptly named Lakeside Motel; the millions of minnows dumped into the ice tea-colored water Monday morning – they’re all signs of the rebirth of a water body that vanished in a flash.

Lake Delton has returned.

Wet again and almost to its normal summer level, the lake popular among vacationers, anglers and boaters has bounced back.

“It’s like a feeling of renewal,” said Kathy Zowin, who owns Lake Delton Watersports with her husband.

Lake Delton Version 2.0, though, appears to be improved. No more nasty carp wrecking the habitat for native fish species. An expanded and sturdier dam can handle double the amount of water that created a chasm last June which emptied the lake in an hour. Public boat landings were enlarged with more parking and bathrooms.

And the Original Wisconsin Ducks drivers have added information about the catastrophe to their spiel on local history, as the breach has become part of the area’s lore.

With water levels only a foot below normal, Lake Delton looks like it did before the June 9, 2008, breach emptied millions of gallons of water into the nearby Wisconsin River. The lake was allowed to partly fill starting in December after the portion of County Highway A that washed away was rebuilt. Then three weeks ago, the refilling resumed, with the natural flow of water emptying from Mirror Lake into Dell Creek and then Lake Delton.

“We haven’t had to manipulate the flows from Mirror Lake,” said Meg Galloway, chief of dams and floodplains for the Department of Natural Resources. “We’ve always been very confident the lake would be filled in time for Memorial Day, and it appears it will be filled well before that.”

Trips by the Original Ducks have returned.

Original Wisconsin Ducks began trips Thursday, in time to attract families still on Easter break. The Ducks were forced to alter the route of the one-hour land-and-water tour after the breach, as the amphibious crafts normally motored through Lake Delton after splashing out of the Wisconsin River.

Matt Oeftger, a Duck driver for 14 years, drove slowly past the now-filled-in chasm Monday afternoon. Loads of riprap now blanket the sides of the land where fish, houses, docks and boats washed away in June. He stopped the vehicle next to the dam before motoring into Lake Delton and described for passengers what happened and the massive rebuilding effort.

“The biggest curiosity is the lake filling. They don’t get the concept that it fills that quickly,” said Oeftger, assistant manager at Original Wisconsin Ducks. “You tell them five houses did wash down the river and there’s this sense of disbelief.”

The fish restocking of the lake shows how things can be accomplished with PRIVATE funding. Even if fish won’t be catchable for a few years.

Though anglers will have to be patient while the lake’s ecosystem gets a reboot, one of the first steps in restocking the lake came Monday, when millions of golden shiners and fathead minnows were dumped into Lake Delton. They’re destined to be forage fish for the walleyes, large and small mouth bass, bluegills, black crappies and channel catfish that will be stocked starting in June.

Dave Gollon, of Dodgeville’s Gollon Bait & Fish Farm, opened a spigot on his truck and watched as many as 9 million tiny silver fish flowed into the water at the public boat landing where many tourists flocked last summer to take pictures of the exposed sandy bottom.

The truckload of minnows is the first of many that will stock the lake with forage fish. Organizers of the Lake Delton Fish Restoration Fund will return to stock the lake with walleyes – about 9,000, or the equivalent of roughly 35 fish per acre – on June 9, the anniversary of the breach.

Because the DNR has no budget for fish stocking, the effort is being done with private donations from sportsmen’s groups and others, including as much as $40,000 from Leinenkugel’s. Authorities estimated it will cost $200,000 to restore Lake Delton’s fishery.

The sport fish won’t be big enough to keep, because of statewide size limits, for several years, said Scott Stewart, DNR regional fisheries supervisors. “It’ll take them three to four years before they’re catchable size,” said Stewart.

It’s definitely a time for excitement in the tourist mecca of Wisconsin and great news for the rest of the state.