Uppity Wisconsin

Jim Rowen asks: Can we keep the Michigan oil spill out of the Great Lakes?

Senator wannabe Ron Johnson, caught unstaffed, said:

"I think the government should just stay the hell out of this and let nature take its course. We have to spill the oil where it is."

OK, he didn't really say that, at least in public. But it would not be out of character, given his previous statements.

Senate candidate Ron Johnson steps through the looking glass in Hudson and finds what's up is down:

... [Johnson] has also been criticized for allegedly supporting drilling for oil in the Great Lakes.

“There is no way I would support drilling in the Great Lakes,” said Johnson, who still wonders what that accusation is based on. “I never said Great Lakes, and I never said drill in the Great Lakes.”

He says he did say the nation should look at drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska.

“I think we need to realize we’re an oil-based economy,” said Johnson. He said the country has to look at the most environmentally friendly ways of producing oil.

At the risk of getting repetitive, this is what Johnson was asked, and what he replied:

Asked, "Do you want to open up more of the United States - the continental United States - to drilling. I mean, would you support drilling like in the Great Lakes for example, if there was oil found there, or using more exploration in Alaska, in ANWR, those kinds of things?" Johnson said:

"Yeah. You know, the bottom line is that we are an oil-based economy.

You may be surprised to hear this, but Senate candidate Ron Johnson is a big environmentalist who's totally opposed to drilling for oil under the Great Lakes. Always has been.

At least that's the line the Journal Sentinel editorial board swallowed and is now peddling to the public.

To help Johnson make his case that he opposes drillling and Russ Feingold is lying about him, the newspaper even cleans up Johnson's quote for him, rewriting the history that began the dispute over the issue.

You may recall this:

 Asked, "Do you want to open up more of the United States - the continental United States - to drilling. I mean, would you support drilling like in the Great Lakes for example, if there was oil found there, or using more exploration in Alaska, in ANWR, those kinds of things?"  Johnson said:

"Yeah. You know, the bottom line is that we are an oil-based economy. There’s nothing we’re going to do to get off of that for many, many years, so I think we have to just be realistic and recognize that fact.

The League of Conservation Voters, the state's largest conservation organization, is aiming to have a real impact on elections this fall.  LCV seems determined to make its endorsements mean something, to its members and to voters.

As a member, I received an email today (below) about the group's endorsement in my State Senate district.  If it's an indication of things to come, LCV could be a real player and make a big difference.  As a statewide organization with offices in four places, it is in a position to put some people on the ground to help candidates, too.

The group is not satisfied, as many are, to simply endorse incumbents with good records on their issues as a thank you.  The first batch of candidates featured on the websit doesn't include a single incumbent, and in my district, actually backs a challenger who's taking on a Democratic incumbent in a primary.

I attended the League of Conservation Voters event in Eau Claire Wednesday night.  The event honored Jeff Smith and Kristin Dexter for having 100% voting records on their Conservation Scorecard. It was heavily attended and was a great event for conservationists in Western Wisconsin.  Here are some pictures:

Jeff Wood Accepts Conservation Champion Award

New ad from Senator Feingold on protecting our resources.

Racine County Executive William Reynolds wants an advisory referendum on his county's Sept. 14 primary ballot, to ask residents if state constitution should be amended to prohibit any further transfers or lapses from the segregated transportation fund, the Journal Times reports.

Are people in Racine really worried that the road builders aren't making enough money, or is there something else going on? Advisory referendum or not, an amendment to the state constitution must be passed by two consecutive sessions of the legislature and then approved by voters in a binding statewide referendum.

But it does raise the intriguing possibility that Wisconsin Democrats should be taking a tip from Republican McReynolds. UPDATE: Waukesha County, too.

You'd think that hot races for governor and US Senator would be enough to get people to the polls, but that ain't necessarily so. How about an advisory referendum on Nov. 2 in Dane County on legalizing medical marijuana, or one in counties along Lake Superior and Lake Michigan on banning oil drilling in the Great Lakes? 

Republican Senate candidate Ron Johnson outlines his energy policy for Wisconsin:

Drill, baby, drill, and nuke, baby, nuke.

That's remarkably consistent.  He's for drilling under the Great Lakes and building more nuclear reactors while high-level radioactive waste continues to pile up on the shores of Lake Michigan. 

The Journal Sentinel, on a forum with Johnson and primary opponent David Westlake:

Johnson, an Oshkosh business owner, supported a "full steam" ahead approach to developing nuclear power plants.

Obviously, the disaster in the Gulf gives Johnson no pause about the likelihood of an even bigger catastrophe that is almost certain, sooner or later, to occur at a nuclear reactor if we keep building them.

Honestly, I am absolutely sick of commercial air travel these days. Just dealing with security is bad enough, but then there’s the airlines, and...hey, all you really need to know here is that there has to be a pretty good reason for me to fly cross-country.

Well, I had one Saturday night, which is how I came to be in the Colonnade Room of the Fairmount Hotel, Washington DC with about 250 of my closest friends, in a classic shawl-collar tuxedo, attending one of the most exclusive “passing of the torch” ceremonies in recent Washington memory.

And when it was all over, Douglas Feith was a happy man.

Respect to your great place!

Netroots Nation will be in Las Vegas in just a few weeks; with that in mind we are going to play “piano bar” and fulfill a couple of requests, one today and one tomorrow, from folks who would like to bring a couple of things to your attention.

Today’s topic: climate change.

As you know, there is a lot of legislation floating around Capitol Hill that would begin to use some sort of market-based mechanism to reduce the amount of carbon we emit. None of it will move unless it moves through the Senate, and today, that’s what we’ll be talking about.

Matter of fact, they will be too.

It is by now obvious that even after we stop the gentle trickle of oil that’s currently expressing itself into the Gulf of Mexico (thank you so much, BP) we are not going to be able to get that oil out of the water for some considerable length of time--and if you think it could take years, I wouldn’t bet against you.

While BP is the legally responsible party, out on the water it will be up to the Coast Guard to manage the Federal response, and to determine that BP is running things in a way that gets the work done not only correctly and safely, but, in a world of limited resources, efficiently.

Which brings us to the obvious question: can the Coast Guard manage such a complex undertaking?

While we hope they can, you need to know that the Coast Guard has been trying to manage the replacement of their fleet of ships and aircraft for about a decade now...and the results have been so stunningly bad that you and I are now the proud owners of a small flotilla of ships that can never be used, because if they go to sea, they might literally break into pieces.

It’s an awful story, and before we’re done you’ll understand why Deepwater was already an ugly word around Headquarters, years before that oil rig blew up.

I guess it's consistent that someone who has recently said he's in favor of global warming would also be in favor of oil drilling wherever it might be possible -- but somehow the idea that someone running for senator from a Great Lakes state would be in favor of oil drilling in the Great Lakes seems a bit much -- Ron Johnson interviewed by Wispolitics -

Would you support drilling, like in the Great Lakes for example?

 

“You know, the bottom line is we are an oil-based economy.  There's nothing we're going to do to get off of that for many years.  I think we have to be realistic and recognize that fact and, you know, I, I think we have to, get the oil where it is, but we have to do it where it is.”

Dear The United Kingdom,

I just wanted to take a minute to say hello and to see how things have been for you lately, and to maybe bring you up to date on a bit of news from here.

Well, right off the bat, we hear you have a new Conservative Prime Minister and that his Party and Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems are in partnership, which I’m sure will be interesting; you probably heard that us Colonials are again having Tea Parties, which has also been very interesting.

I have a Godson who’s getting married this September, so we’re all talking about that, and I hear Graham Norton was even better than last year at hosting Eurovision, despite the fact that it’s...frankly, it’s Eurovision.

Oh, yeah...we also had a bit of an oil spill recently that you may have heard about—and hoo, boy; you should see how the Company that spilled the oil has been acting.

Cross-posted from my blog, Kaufman's Gull)

The National Wildlife Federation has just issued a detailed and devastating report on an oil pipeline that would send tar sands oil from Canada across the nation to coastal refineries in Texas.  A pipeline expansion is also planned to  bisect Wisconsin from the northwest to the southeast along existing pipeline routes.  Here's a small sample taken from Staying Hooked on a Dirty Fuel: Why Canadian Tar Sands Pipelines are a Bad Bet for the United States:

We live in Wisconsin,  I'm glad there's global warming.  We'd be standing on top of a 200-foot thick glacier ...  Senate candidate Ron Johnson on WTAQ Radio.

Now if we could only get rid of those glaciers at the North and South Poles.  Well, we're working on it.  Johnson says it's "absolutely not proven" that humans have caused the problem.