Boots & Sabers

The blogging will continue until morale improves...

M
Month: June 2017

Tribe Withholds Payment to State

by | 1200, 30 Jun 1717 | , , | 8 Comments

Heh.

A Native American tribe in northern Wisconsin is following through on its promise to withhold nearly $1 million in casino revenue from the state. The payment of $923,000 dollars is due today.

The Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians is withholding the money because of the expansion of a nearby casino in Wittenberg run by the Ho-Chunk Nation, according to tribe President Shannon Holsey.

“What I’m saying is until our dispute can be resolved, we have the ability to withhold it within our gaming compact and that’s what we intend to do,” Holsey said.

Wisconsin’s racist laws toward gambling are outdated and counterproductive. In Wisconsin, it is illegal to operate a gambling establishment – unless you are a Native American tribe… then it’s OK. They get a pass and they do not have to pay taxes on their profits. Instead, they pay an agreed-upon tribute in lieu of taxes that they can withhold at whim, as these folks are doing now. The state has almost no recourse to force them to pay like every other profitable Wisconsin business.

Wisconsin’s ban on gambling is rendered completely meaningless in the presence of giant Native American casinos and a state-sanctioned lottery. Let’s just abandon the ridiculous pretense and legalize gambling for anyone. That way, at least, the competition will serve as a check against behavior like this.

Conservative Wisconsin Senators Oppose Tax Increase

by | 1151, 30 Jun 1717 | | 1 Comment

Glad to see my senator on this press release.

As the budget debate lingers, it remains clear that some in the legislature are seeking to increase WisDOT taxes in any way possible. The recent audit of WisDOT shows there are many reasons the agency has been inefficient and does not deserve new revenues. We should be looking for savings in government.

The “tax of the week” is a new tax on trucking. Instead of getting creative to find new ways to tax Wisconsinites, we should be discussing the reforms needed to clean up an agency with a record of over-designing, over-building, and over-paying for our roads. If the state were to add a new tax, Wisconsin’s tax rankings will go in the wrong direction.

Throughout the budget process, we have been discussing the elimination of taxes like the state forestry mill tax and the personal property tax on Main Street. Now is not the time to increase taxes on our citizens.

Iraq Declares Defeat of IS

by | 1054, 29 Jun 1717 | , | 0 Comments

I sure hope so.

Iraqi troops have seized the ruins of Mosul’s grand mosque from Isis, the military said in an announcement, declaring the extremists’ reign in the country to be over.

“Their fictitious state has fallen,” military spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Rasool told state TV on Thursday – three years to the day since Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the establishment of the so-called caliphate from the same spot.

Mayor Sadownikow Testifies About Dark Store

by | 1000, 29 Jun 1717 | | 1 Comment

West Bend’s mayor is testifying in front of the state’s Ways and Means Committee today regarding the “Dark Store” theory of property taxation. Here is his testimony in full.

Chairman Macco and Committee on Ways and Means:

Thank you for taking time to solicit comments from the public regarding this important topic.   I have been Mayor in West Bend for a bit over 6 years and was re-elected to a 3rd term in April.

In West Bend, we have an intelligent constituency that pays attention to their local governmental activities.  They see the City, Washington County and our local School District working hard to offer the best possible service at the lowest possible cost.  They see us prioritize and invest in the most important roles of government, making difficult decisions often at the expense of less critical operations.  They see us respecting their tax dollars and they have confidence we invest wisely into our community.  I have spoken to hundreds of people about this topic from around the full spectrum of political leanings.  They understand the Dark Store Theory and Walgreen challenges to assessments put at risk the financial stability of communities in Wisconsin.  They know current law will place an undue burden on small business, manufacturing, agriculture and homeowners.

As the old saying goes “You don’t know what you don’t know”.  No one knew this loophole existed, nor did anyone know the dramatic negative ramifications that would result from the discovery of this loophole. Congratulations goes to the accountants and attorneys who discovered and are benefiting from finding it.  I hold no ill will toward the businesses who are, on behalf of their organizations, exploiting this flaw in legislation.  I don’t think it is a coincidence West Bend has gone decades with little more than a handful of assessment challenges per year, mainly residential and then 3-4 years ago, BAM we are hit with Walgreens, Meijer, WalMart, Shopko, Menards..all challenging 50-60 and in some cases almost 70% ?  Of course that is not a coincidence, it is when they found the loophole.  They brought it to our attention, fortunately we now know about it and I ask you and the Legislature to close it.

In West Bend, we have two Walgreens stores that recently sold for a combined $14,000,000.  Walgreens challenged and won.  They are now assessed at a combined $4,800,000.  This approximate $9,000,000 drop equates to about $180,000 to our taxing bodies.  In fact, the West Bend School District had to cut a check back to Walgreens for about $80,000 and is experiencing a permanent revenue reduction on an annual basis equating to more than an FTE teaching position.  The free and open market said the buildings are worth $14,000,000.  Walgreens attorneys and current Wisconsin Loophole says they are worth about 1/3rd of that.  Quite honestly, I trust the free market more than Walgreen’s attorneys.

Meijer opened a new 200,000 square foot facility just a few weeks ago.  They paid $6,000,000 for the land and their initial assessment stands at $20,000,000.  Even before they opened their store and the ribbon was cut, before they ever paid a full tax bill, their attorneys filed a challenge demanding an assessment of $9,000,000.  The difference between what they paid for the property and their demanded assessment is $3,000,000 or $15 per square foot of building, ridiculously low.  Left unchecked, this kind of strategy is damaging to Wisconsin and I ask you to make it stop.

In addition to the examples above, West Bend has assessment challenges from WalMart, Menard’s and ShopKo, I hear rumblings of others as well.  The slippery slope appears to have no ending.

Walgreens and Meijer are not being asked to pay someone else’s property tax, just their own, under the same format Wisconsin has been using for decades.  I would like them to stop demanding that we pay theirs.

This important legislation knows no political boundaries.  I ask each of you to support the passage of these bills, quickly, for the benefit of Wisconsin.

Thank you for your time.

 

Sincerely,

Kraig K. Sadownikow

Mayor

City of West Bend, WI

 

Wisconsin Supreme Court Rules on Open Meetings

by | 0849, 29 Jun 1717 | , | 0 Comments

Excellent! There seems to be a trend of school boards trying to do more and more in the dark. We need to be vigilant about pushing that trend back.

MADISON – The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday ruled Appleton school officials violated the open meetings law when they reviewed a freshman reading class behind closed doors.

The unanimous decision by Justice Michael Gableman reversed two lower court rulings. The case now returns to Waupaca Circuit Court for further proceedings.

Lottery Players Come to Wisconsin

by | 0702, 29 Jun 1717 | | 3 Comments

Illinois is in free-fall thanks to years and years of bad policies. In a Federal system, we have the advantage of seeing the results of different policies in different states. Illinois serves as a stark warning.

Businesses near the Illinois state line are cashing in on Illinois’ budget impasse.

Illinois state lottery officials suspended Powerball ticket sales, and Mega Millions is expected to stop on Friday.

Convenience stores in Kenosha have already noticed more players from Illinois stopping in to buy tickets.

“Today alone there’s so many people coming up here,” said store owner Roxanne Jackson. “They’re real disappointed that Illinois is canceling their lottery but that’s OK, we’ll bring them here.”

Boaty McBoatface Returns

by | 0655, 29 Jun 1717 | | 0 Comments

Neat.

(CNN)We may not all live in a yellow submarine, but Boaty McBoatface — the internet’s favorite golden-hued robotic submersible — returned home to the United Kingdom last week with “unprecedented data” about some of the coldest and deepest ocean waters on the planet that may help scientists better understand climate change, researchers said in a statement Wednesday.

“We have been able to collect massive amounts of data that we have never been able to capture before due to the way Boaty is able to move underwater,” professor Alberto Naveira Garabato from the University of Southampton, the lead scientist of expedition, said in the statement. “Up until now we have only been able to take measurements from a fixed point, but now, we are able to obtain a much more detailed picture of what is happening in this very important underwater landscape. The challenge for us now is to analyze it all.”
Boaty McBoatface’s first voyage involved three missions 500 miles from the Antarctic Peninsula in the deep, cold water of the Orkney Passage, a region of the Southern Ocean about 4,000 meters deep, according to the British Antarctic Survey.

Minumum Wage Hike Hurts Lower-Income Workers

by | 0848, 28 Jun 1717 | , | 1 Comment

If only someone could have predicted this…

A new study published by University of Washington economists found that, as conservatives long argued and as basic economics would seem to have predetermined, Seattle’s unprecedented minimum-wage hike actually hurt the very workers it sought to help.

Specifically, the economists found, as businesses were forced to devote more of their revenue to payroll, they scaled back workers’ hours by nearly 10 percent.

So even though the minimum wage had ticked up from $11 to $13 — on its way to $15 in 2021 — Seattle’s low-income workers ended up bringing home $125 less each month in 2016.

It’s worth noting that these findings are preliminary, not yet subjected to the scrutiny of peer review.

UW Won’t Cover UWO Foundation Debt

by | 0719, 28 Jun 1717 | , | 2 Comments

Good.

The University of Wisconsin System will not use taxpayer money to pay the debts of the troubled UW-Oshkosh Foundation, officials said Tuesday, and has backed out of talks with the nonprofit’s creditors about a potential settlement.

It would be “inappropriate” to use public funding to cover what the foundation still owes for a series of improper real estate projects orchestrated by two former top administrators at the Oshkosh campus, said Regent Michael Grebe.

UW officials acknowledged in May that they were in “preliminary discussions” on a settlement with banks that loaned the UW-Oshkosh Foundation money, prompting an outcry from lawmakers who said they opposed a taxpayer-funded “bailout” of the private nonprofit.

 But Grebe said Tuesday that the System is “no longer engaged in settlement discussions, and there is no indication as to if (or) when those talks would resume.”

Lawmakers Propose Reduction in Lottery Advertising Budget

by | 0710, 28 Jun 1717 | | 1 Comment

Huh.

The Wisconsin Lottery’s promotional advertising would be scaled back and its annual advertising budget would be cut under a bipartisan proposal introduced Tuesday.

The proposal from Rep. Rob Hutton, R-Brookfield, and Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison, would ban the Department of Revenue from collecting email addresses and promoting the lottery through a “players club.”

It would further prohibit the use of lottery winner names or lottery retail locations in advertising, and it would require that all required disclosures in lottery broadcast ads be delivered in a normal speaking voice.

It also would limit advertising to $5 million a year, a 33 percent reduction from the current level.
 And here I thought it was unconstitutional for the state to advertise the lottery. Of wait… it is.
(6) (a) The legislature may authorize the creation of a lottery to be operated by the state as provided by law. The expenditure of public funds or of revenues derived from lottery operations to engage in promotional advertising of the Wisconsin state lottery is prohibited.

Cyberattack Sweeps Globe

by | 2003, 27 Jun 1717 | | 2 Comments

Ouch. We need an answer.

Companies across the globe are reporting that they have been struck by a major ransomware cyber-attack.

British advertising agency WPP is among those to say its IT systems have been disrupted as a consequence.

The virus, the source of which is not yet known, freezes the user’s computer until a ransom in untraceable Bitcoin is paid.

Ukrainian firms, including the state power company and Kiev’s main airport, were among the first to report issues.

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant has also had to monitor radiation levels manually after its Windows-based sensors were shut down.

22 Million More Uninsured

by | 0807, 27 Jun 1717 | , | 70 Comments

Good.

Some 22 million Americans could lose their health insurance over the next decade under a Senate bill to replace Obamacare, a congressional report says.

However, the bill would reduce the budget deficit, the non-partisan Congressional Budgetary Office said.

Similar legislation passed by the House was also said to leave millions uninsured. Some Republicans have voiced reservations about the plan.

But the White House disputed the CBO’s figures.

Responding to Monday’s report, it said: “The CBO has consistently proven it cannot accurately predict how healthcare legislation will impact insurance coverage.”

The report is a review of draft legislation unveiled by the Republican party last week.

It is unlikely to be approved by Democrats, who see the proposals as cruel and unfair.

The CBO said that 15 million more people would be uninsured by 2018 under the proposed legislation than under current law, largely because the penalty for not having insurance would be eliminated.

First, I would point out that the CBO estimates for what would happen if we passed Obamacare were waaaaaay off. Remember that this is just a group of people sitting around trying to make an educated guess of how legislation will impact a very dynamic world. I wish they would give a margin of error and standard deviation of their predictions to put them into context. They do, however, couch their predictions with words like “could” and “might,” so it is really on the reporters who run with these reports like they are Gospel.

Second, if the prediction is accurate that 15 million people will have their right to choose restored, then that’s a good thing. That indicates that right now they are being forced to purchase a product that they think they don’t need or want. If we truly are a nation that values liberty and the freedom of Americans to make choices about their own lives, then the CBO report is a welcome tonic.

SCOTUS protects free speech

by | 0740, 27 Jun 1717 | , | 2 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online. Here you go:

With the rush of news lately about Obamacare, Brexit, Trump and everything else happening in our world, one can be forgiven for missing that the Supreme Court of the United States rendered what may prove to be one of its most important decisions protecting the free speech rights of Americans. The background of the case stretches back into decades of American progressive culture.

For decades, many American liberals who preach fidelity to the 1st Amendment and free speech have been carving out more and more speech as unworthy of such protection. In the past, the answer to offensive speech was more speech. Americans were certainly free to say nasty things and express abhorrent thoughts, and other Americans would respond with contrary speech. Such debate is an underpinning of a free society.

Liberals in America have been slowly eroding that robust intellectual ethos by decreeing that some speech is so offensive that the speaker must not be allowed to say it or face severe penalties if they do. This anti-free speech attitude has manifested in our American culture in the form of safe spaces, trigger words, speech codes and the like. On many college campuses and other liberal institutions, the price for saying something that does not please the ruling regime — from Marquette University to ESPN — is ostracism, reprimand, and expulsion.

It was in this intolerant culture that Barack Obama and many his fellow travelers were incubated and they brought it with them when Obama became our president. It was just that sort of intolerance that seeped into the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

The USPTO has a very simple purpose. It to register the unique intellectual property of individual Americans. The USPTO is not responsible for enforcing trademarks or copyrights. It is merely an office that evaluates a trademark or invention to determine if it is unique, and if it is, to register it in an official government record. If a person has a trademark or copyright that they think is being violated, then that person must file a civil suit in federal or state court to have the court enforce it.

Under the Obama Administration, the USPTO tried to stretch its mission to not just register unique trademarks,but to enforce a liberal speech code on them and prohibit trademarks that they did not like. Under the auspices of a “disparagement clause,” the USPTO had taken to denying trademarks that would normally qualify, but were deemed “offensive” to some real or mythical constituency.

Such were the rubrics that a band called “The Slants” confronted when trying to register the name of their band. The USPTO denied their application for a trademark because the word “slant” is considered a derogatory term for Asians. The Slants are a group of Asian-Americans who are determined to reclaim anti-Asian stereotypes, so they filed suit against the USPTO to have their name protected. The end result was the Supreme Court ruling of last week in the case of Matal v. Tam.

In a unanimous 8-0 decision, the Supreme Court utterly repudiated the USPTOs position. In a clear, uncompromising ruling supported by the entire spectrum of judicial philosophies on the court, Justice Alito said that “Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express ‘the thought that we hate.’” Indeed. There was a time when all Americans believed that.

The Supreme Court’s ruling has drawn a line across which government entities may not cross. This has implications across our nation in government offices, public universities, and every other area where our government has been firmly pushing the 1st Amendment into a small, controlled, “safe space.” Moving forward, every effort by public institutions to restrict and control speech must be measured against this ruling. Many of them will find themselves failing to meet its standard and Americans must hold them to account.

CNN Employees Resign in Disgrace

by | 2157, 26 Jun 1717 | | 11 Comments

Trump Derangement Syndrome can kill your career.

Three CNN employees have resigned after the outlet deleted a story from its website that claimed there were possible ties between Russia and an associate of President Donald Trump.

In the wake of their resignation, Donald Trump Jr is calling for CNN’s president Jeff Zucker to publicly explain, saying the story is ‘the biggest fake news scandal in the network’s history’.

Thomas Frank, Eric Lichtblau and Lex Haris were all involved in CNN’s new investigative unit and left the company Monday.

Frank wrote the deleted story, Lichtblau was an editor in the unit and Haris oversaw the unit.

‘In the aftermath of the retraction of a story published on CNN.com, CNN has accepted the resignations of the employees involved in the story’s publication,’ a spokesperson said.

SCOTUS Takes Up Religious Freedom Case

by | 2041, 26 Jun 1717 | , , | 1 Comment

Excellent. Let’s hope that the court reaffirms our religious liberties.

Washington (CNN)The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a religious liberty case concerning a Colorado cake artist who refused to make a cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding reception, claiming that to do so violated his religious liberty under the Constitution.

The Court will take up the case, Masterpiece v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, in its next term, which starts in October.

Republican Donors Threaten GOP

by | 2029, 26 Jun 1717 | | 0 Comments

Good.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — At least one influential donor has informed congressional Republicans that the “Dallas piggy bank” is closed until he sees major action on health care and taxes.

Texas-based donor Doug Deason has already refused to host a fundraiser for two members of Congress and informed House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., his checkbook is closed as well.

“Get Obamacare repealed and replaced, get tax reform passed,” Deason said in a pointed message to GOP leaders. “You control the Senate. You control the House. You have the presidency. There’s no reason you can’t get this done. Get it done and we’ll open it back up.”

Indeed, there was a sense of frustration and urgency inside the private receptions and closed-door briefings at the Koch brothers’ donor retreat this weekend in Colorado Springs, where the billionaire conservatives and their chief lieutenants warned of a rapidly shrinking window to push their agenda through Congress and get legislation to President Donald Trump to sign into law.

SCOTUS Allows Part of Travel Ban to Go Into Effect

by | 1042, 26 Jun 1717 | , , | 1 Comment

Boy… there’s a lot of SCOTUS news happening at the moment. Now there’s this:

The justices granted parts of his administration’s emergency request to put the March 6 executive order into effect immediately while the legal battle continues.

The court said that the travel ban is in effect “with respect to foreign nationals who lack any bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.”

The court also said it would allow a 120-day ban on all refugees entering the United States to go into effect on the same grounds.

Three of the court’s conservatives said they would have granted Trump’s request in full, including Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch.

While I think it is important that this issue be resolved by the courts to reaffirm the President’s authority in these matters, I am left wondering why the ban is still necessary. Remember that this was supposed to be a temporary ban while the administration firmed up its vetting procedures for foreigners traveling to the U.S. Those new vetting procedures should be in place now, thus rendering the temporary travel ban moot. If those procedures aren’t ready and in place, why not? That was, after all, the long-term goal.

Kennedy to Retire?

by | 0847, 26 Jun 1717 | , | 0 Comments

We seem to get this scuttlebutt every year. With Trump in the White House, the media establishment is in full panic over even the whiff of another SCOTUS retirement. Trump’s past pick was solid, so I’m hopeful that the rumors are true.

(CNN)The final week of the Supreme Court session opens Monday, and with it comes rampant speculation that Justice Anthony Kennedy may call it quits.

If Kennedy does announce his retirement, it would almost certainly ensure not only a clear rightward swing in the Court but would also cement a major part of Donald Trump’s legacy barely five months into his first term.

Login | Register

Archives

Categories

Pin It on Pinterest