The GOP House leadership designated February 18 to 22 as one of several controversial "House Constituent Work Weeks."  The leadership said such work weeks were necessary:

Well, this is unfortunate but perhaps unsurprising. A correction issued today by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (boldfacing added by yours truly):

"The headline on an article Wednesday about environmental problems confronting a band of Lake Superior Chippewa misstated the band's name. It is the Bad River Band, not the Bad Water Band. Also, the article incorrectly stated that Odanah is in Bayfield County. It is in Ashland County."

During Wednesday morning's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) channeled recent comments by Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, who has been running radio ads (paid for with tax dollars) urging residents to buy guns to protect themselves because calling 911 might take too long. Graham was questioning Milwaukee Police Department Chief Edward Flynn on the challenges local police departments face under tight budgets. Perhaps Graham was prompted by knowledge of Clarke's recent recents, because he asked:

“Foster parents are special saints,” the Eau Claire woman told me. “They take troubled children and help them have a loving family.”

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Clearly, Scott Walker adheres to the discreditable Reaganesque notion that "government isn't the solution -- it's the problem." So give Walker and his enablers in the GOP-controlled legislature a teensy bit of credit for horrifying consistency: Through their anti-life, pro-business, anything goes, blitzkrieg approach to public policy, these political cretins are doing their level worst to make Wisconsin government a really, really, really, really, really big problem. Talk about self-fulfilling prophecies.

Listening to local and national TV news the last few weeks, you'd be excused for thinking the apocalypse already has arrived. Huge amounts of air time have been devoted here in Milwaukee on local news telecasts and on network news shows reporting various shooting incidents in Wisconsin, the nation and beyond: The Las Vegas car chase / gun battle through the heart of that city that left multiple fatalities, the Oscar Pistorius shooting incident in South Africa, shootings in Milwaukee that included a running gun battle on a busy intersection involving an alleged robber and his victim, and many more.

It was wall-to-wall guns, and only a little of the coverage covered political efforts in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut, grade school murders to toughen the nation's ridiculously weak gun control laws. Still, for once, all the mayhem documented on TV news video served a purpose besides an "if it bleeds it leads" viewer ratings push.