Here's where to find all that good dirt on Federal candidate's fundraising:
FEC Electronic Filing Report Retrieval

Governor Doyle makes his first stab at histroy:
State of The State Address

These words may affect your life more than any words spoken in a generation, perhaps you should read them:
State of the Union Address by President George W. Bush

Are we going to war?


Our war against terror is a contest of will in which perseverance is power. In the ruins of two towers, at the western wall of the Pentagon, on a field in Pennsylvania, this nation made a pledge, and we renew that pledge tonight: Whatever the duration of this struggle, and whatever the difficulties, we will not permit the triumph of violence in the affairs of men -- free people will set the course of history.


Today, the gravest danger in the war on terror, the gravest danger facing America and the world, is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. These regimes could use such weapons for blackmail, terror, and mass murder. They could also give or sell those weapons to terrorist allies, who would use them without the least hesitation.


This threat is new; America's duty is familiar. Throughout the 20th century, small groups of men seized control of great nations, built armies and arsenals, and set out to dominate the weak and intimidate the world. In each case, their ambitions of cruelty and murder had no limit. In each case, the ambitions of Hitlerism, militarism, and communism were defeated by the will of free peoples, by the strength of great alliances, and by the might of the United States of America.


Now, in this century, the ideology of power and domination has appeared again, and seeks to gain the ultimate weapons of terror. Once again, this nation and all our friends are all that stand between a world at peace, and a world of chaos and constant alarm. Once again, we are called to defend the safety of our people, and the hopes of all mankind. And we accept this responsibility. (Applause.)

Quotable:


'I used to be indecisive, now I'm not so sure' --Scott McCallum

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
"Join in the new game that's sweeping the country. It's called "Bureaucracy" Everybody stands in a circle. The first person to do anything loses." -- Anonymous

REGULATIONS.GOV TAKES CAPITOL HILL TO THE LIVING ROOM

(PC World) On Thursday, the Office of Management and Budget launched Regulations.gov, the latest feature of the Bush Administration's Electronic Government Act. A one-stop online shop, the portal enables interested citizens to research and comment on federal government activities.
Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, said, "It's not nirvana, but it's an enormous step in the right direction. The distance between Washington and the rest of the country has been shrinking for almost two centuries, and this shrinks it almost to zero."
Regulations.gov garnered 68,000 hits in its first 6 hours.

Here is a site that will be very useful for anyone interested in Federal policy: Regulations.gov

A man who clearly has no business ever running a city, let alone Madison.

Here is an early 2004 presidential race analysis from the Bush senior advisor: Karl Rove
Rove is apparently coming into the Midwest next week for Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker. This is very unusual.

Governor Doyle takes first whack at the Budget:
: Budget Repair Outline

Welcome to Political Hell!

Go to WisOpinion!

Described by one of her campaign people as a "raging bitch". This is your Supreme Court Justice. Elect Judge Pat Roggensack - Supreme Court 2003

TIPS ON LOBBYING:

Want something from our friends on Capitol Hill? Check out these tips and go get what is rightfully yours. (Or what could be yours)

Here's a link to all of Wisconsin's officials, idiots included.

The new administration.

TEN RULES FOR NEW CABINET SECRETARIES:



1.) You work for the Governor.

You serve at his pleasure. Remember that. The Governor sets your policy, principle, and politics. Don't ever disagree with him publicly while working for him. (Cabinet meetings may be generally be considered "public".) If you find that you can not agree and follow his course, shut up, and find a new job. Once you are again a free agent you may speak your own mind.


2.) The agency works for you.

The career staff often believe that they run the agency. This should not and need not be true. If you do not disabuse them of that notion early on, you will be failing both the Governor and the voters who elected him. You must gather your agency's senior and midlevel staff and lay out the fact that there is a new administration, and with the new administration comes a new direction. Invite them to join in helping the administration achieve the goals it was elected to deliver. Suggest that changes will be made and reorganization is likely. Make it clear that you respect the staff but that you will be ultimately directing the agency. Do not let the staff make key decisions without your approval. Don't let them set the timetable, or withhold information that is critical to your decsion making. Don't let them recommend a single action in writing: always demand multiple options. Find an agency legal counsel who will aid you in your adminisrtative activities within the agency, who will search for a "yes" rather than one who tells you "it can't be done".


3.) Make the Chief of Staff your friend.

The Chief of Staff is the voice and right hand of the Governor. Don't try to bypass or backdoor the Chief of Staff, for that way lies doom. Meet or speak with the Chief of Staff frequently. The Chief of Staff either knows what the Governor's mind is on a policy area or can find it out more quickly and accurately than you. (Yes, Of course you are old friends and allies of the Governor, check with the Chief of Staff anyway.) The Chief of Staff has more frequent contact and a better view of the big picture.


4.) Your first job is to get the Governor re-elected.

This is the big picture. Many new members of an administration wrongly believe that they must achieve mighty deeds and darn fast too. Remember this: speed kills. If you work hard to make sure your boss is re-elected he will have the necessary time to achieve great things. Policy changes are often difficult in our system of government, increase the likelyhood of re-election and you increase the probability of achieving lasting change. In practice this means actively seeking out ways to be participatory and helpful to the campaign staff and the Chief of Staff.


5.) Your second job is to achieve the Governor's policy aims.

See rule number four.


6.) Return your phone calls.

This seems like a small thing, it is not. Upon this small item will much of your reputation for success and professionalism as a cabinet secretary be founded. This does not mean only your friends, treat your former opponents with professionalism and you disarm them and may even make them allies. Hold your friends close and your enemies closer.


7.) Shine a light on your problems.

If there is a problem or crisis that involves your agency tell the Chief of Staff immediately. Yes, if that means a call at three in the morning on Christmas Eve so be it. You have a job that now has you on call 24/7. If the first time that the Governor learns of a problem in your agency is in the paper or on the TV news, you will be looking for another job.


8.) Don't become a media hound.

The next worse thing to not telling the Governor of bad news, is for the Governor to see news going out under a cabinet member's name.
It is hard to over-estimate the importance of this. Never just put out a press release, call a press conference, or return a reporter's call. ALWAYS contact the Governor's office with the news first. If you have good news, consider offering to build an event for the Governor related to it. Every press release should mention your boss three times before mentioning your own. Don't work the media without first clearing it with at least the press secretary and probably the Chief of Staff as well. You exist to make the Governor look good not to indulge your own ego.


9.) Make your boss' life easier.

Your boss will need a variety of help that is not immediately obvious. Offer to help. He must attend events and fundraisers at which many people will be attending for the sole purpose of complaining. He will be chewed on incessently. If you attend with him you can save him from some of that suffering. He will be able to direct troubled people to "a member of my cabinet". You will suffer some as a result but will save him a bit of his enormous burden. Shared suffering the the lot of a good cabinet member. He may also need to hire more people than his immediate office can place, once you master the technique of hiring good people within your domain, offer to fill your opennings with his choices first. Everyone likes to master of their own domain but remember your boss first and you will both profit by it.


10.) Don't leak (and the corollary: Don't be caught leaking.)

You owe loyalty to the Governor and the press is not your friend. Leaking may well allow you to win a budget or policy battle within the administration. It will also truly hurt your boss. An administration that leaks is perceived to be ill-run and undisciplined. A cabinet member who is thought to have leaked is at best seen as a free-lancer and at worst a traitor. If you must betray your boss in that fashion make sure that you are "off the record" or "on background", and ask the reporter explicitly what he understands those terms to mean before speaking.

OUR PURPOSE:
By a Society which has undertaken the task of contributing, as far as lies in its power, to the diffusion of useful knowledge, no means should be neglected by which instructive amusement can be afforded.

Timid (although well-meaning) persons might perhaps be inclined to censure such a society, should it set the example of applying the powers of the press to the production of a Wisconsin Report. They might object that the instrument which is intended for good might be used for evil; that publications in form so cheap as to be accessible to the lowest class of readers, would soon fall into the hands of the lowest class of writers.

We doubt this, although we know it is the opinion of many excellent persons; we have good and substantial reasons to assign for our doubts, but into those reasons we shall not enter, the time for them is past. The evil (if it be an evil) is already in being.

The demand of the public has already called into existence free periodical publications, of which eight or ten have established a regular readership. It will be cheering intelligence to those who would have dissuaded from this undertaking, that the most noxious of them have been hitherto the least successful.

The channel, then, is open. Through its course must flow much of the information conveyed to the minds of a large and increasing class of readers. We are called upon to pour into it, as far as we are able, clear waters from the pure and healthy springs of knowledge. That duty we will not neglect; in the attempt to fulfil it we think that we ought not to fail.

Our saintly citizens profess to be unaware of the state's pending fiscal doom.