Wisconsin needs a statewide smoking ban, or risks being the region's ashtray, says Gov. Doyle.

He's right.

"Just because Senator [Scott]Fitzgerald is failing to do his job doesn't mean Governor Doyle should stop doing his." -- Doyle spokesman Matt Canter on Fitzgerald's suggestion that Doyle cancel a trade mission to work on the state budget.

It is the legislature's responsibility to pass a budget and send it to Doyle, although Fitzgerald seems to think otherwise.

In sum, I shall Kick Global Ass  Fred Kaplan offers a comprehensive analysis of Rudy's ridiculous Foreign Affairs article.

Stupid Dem of the Day: Gov. Jim Doyle (D-Wi) The NYT carried a story on Lakes Superior, Huron, and Michigan approaching record low levels. That is not news to those visiting or living on the shores. Something is happening to our most precious resource.  Billions of gallons of Great Lakes water is being wasted. Its the equivalent of a leak in a balloon. What are we doing about it? Not much. In fact Lake Michigan is not on the governor's radar screen. Ominous silence on the BP plan to dump more toxic waste into the lake in Indiana and no effort to pass the Great Lakes Compact. Untreated sewage still pours into Lake Michigan and Waukesha County wants to take Lake Michigan water despite the consequences.

Republican legislators want Gov. Jim Doyle to agree not to use his veto power on the state budget, if they ever agree on one.

Fat chance, for a variety of reasons.

A Capital Times editorial correctly says that the Rs have no credibility on the issue, having never complained for the 16 years that Tommy Thompson and Scott McCallum were using the same veto power Doyle now wields.

Good point. In those days, the GOP liked the idea of three branches of government with checks and balances.

In fact, Thompson, in his ridiculous campaign for president, brags that he used his veto more than 1900 times.

Good for the goose ...

Wanna bet? The allegations -- or should I say smear? -- ran repeatedly on page one during the last campaign. Let's see where this one ends up, and what the spin is:

WisPolitics:

AG Van Hollen: DOJ investigation concludes no evidence found linking campaign contributions to sale of Kewaunee nuclear power plant

MADISON - The Wisconsin Department of Justice has closed an investigation into the Wisconsin Public Service Commission’s (PSC) decision to approve the sale of the Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant, determining no evidence was found linking campaign donations to Governor Doyle to the PSC’s decision.

In November 2004, the PSC denied an application by Wisconsin Public Service Corporation and Wisconsin Power and Light Company to sell the plant to a subsidiary of Dominion Resources, Inc., a Virginia-based utility. In March 2005, after the utilities made several changes to their application, the PSC unanimously approved the sale.

In late 2005, the DOJ commenced an investigation to determine whether the Office of Governor Doyle improperly influenced the PSC in its deliberations about the Kewaunee matter. Employees from the interested utilities donated money to the Doyle campaign.

“After a thorough investigation,” said Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, “we have not found any evidence linking campaign donations to Governor Doyle to the PSC decision to approve the sale of the Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant. Nor did we find any evidence that the Governor’s Office improperly influenced the PSC decision in any way.”

UPDATE: It ran on the bottom of the front page on Wednesday.

It seems to have escaped public notice that Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle has added a Republican to his cabinet, with the appointment of Rick Raemisch as secretary of corrections.

 Raemisch is a former Dane County sheriff who was appointed by then Gov. Tommy Thompson, was later elected to the post as a Republican, and ran unsuccessfully for Dane County DA on the GOP ticket, too. (Yes, he’s also a lawyer.) He had been deputy corrections secretary.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, and not that it’s a big deal, but it seems worth a mention, and neither of the state’s two biggest newspapers, the Wisconsin State Journal and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, bothered. So now you know. (WisPolitics did mention it.)

AFTERTHOUGHT: Doyle actually has another R in the cabinet, but he didn't choose him. Veterans Affairs Secretary John Scocus was named by a Republican-heavy veterans board shortly after Doyle took office. Scocos is now temporarily on active duty, but still riling people up. Yet another. I am reminded by a reader that Insurance Commish Sean Dilweg is a former Republican staffer. They're everywhere!

Other random thoughts:

A debate I might watch: Tommy Thompson vs. Michael Moore? My money’s on the fat(ter) guy.

Paul Bucher is being mentioned – probably by Paul Bucher – as a potential Supreme Court candidate. As the Whallah! Blog notes, that would be a great opportunity for the incumbent, Louis Butler, to recycle a slogan from last spring’s campaign” “Not one day as a judge.”

Almost two weeks after the press release, the Journal Sentinel gets around to reporting that Wisconsin’s former US Senator Bob Kasten has been named a foreign policy advisor to the presidential campaign of Everybody’s Mayor, Rudy what’s his name. The story says Kasten runs his own investment banking and consulting firm. Last reports we heard sometime back was that he was an arms dealer. But he and Rudy, we understand, both look good in a dress.

Three decades out of the newspaper business, it's still hard sometimes not to second guess decisions on coverage. This weekend's coverage of the Wisconsin Democratic Party's convention is a case in point. This weekend's non-coverage would be a more apt description. The event drew 700-plus delegates, but virtually no media attention, even in Milwaukee, where it was held. The state's largest newspaper, once the Wisconsin paper of record, almost ignored it entirely.

The Associated Press did file a complete story Friday night, carried in abbreviated form in most outlets which used it, headlined, "Gov. hints at re-election bid as state Dems rail on Iraq war" The most complete version, ironically, seems to be in the Winona Daily News, on the Minnesota side of the Mississippi. But the papers and TV stations which used it mostly cut it to about five paragraphs.

Meanwhile, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, whose newsroom is about five blocks from the convention site, carried nothing in Saturday's paper and very little on Sunday.

Here is almost the complete JS print coverage of the two-day event:

Dennis Troha, Kenosha businessman and would-be casino kingpin, has pleaded guilty to two federal misdemeanors Friday in connection with improper political contributions he made.

That Troha was negotiating a plea has been widely reported.

But the media will be shocked, shocked to discover that Troha's plea is not a scandal involving Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, but a bipartisan conviction.

All of the paperwork hasn't been filed, [UPDATE: Here's the agreement.] But Troha pleaded to conspiring to skirt campaign finance laws and help the campaigns of Doyle and -- surprise! -- President George W. Bush.

To my knowledge, Bush's name had never been mentioned in any of the previous news accounts about Troha's troubles. [UPDATE: The Wisconsin State Journal did write about Troha's donations to Bush in a story in March,

It's a little too early for this sort of bluster, but Speaker Mike Huebsch says Assembly Republicans may refuse to pass a state budget.

Before he leads his party too far down that path, Huebsch might want to touch bases with Newt Gingrich when he's in Wisconsin tomorrow.

Gingrich, you may recall, was the architect of the 1995 shutdown of the federal government, in a showdown with President Bill Clinton.

Gingrich and the GOP were emboldened by a sweep in the 1994 Congressional midterm elections which gave Republicans control.

But Gingrich and Co. overplayed their hand, and, while achieving some of their budget objectives, paid a huge political price for losing the public relations war. Gingrich left government not too long after that disaster.

And Gingrich arguably had a mandate at the time. Huebsch and Wisconsin Republicans, on the other hand, had their heads handed to them in November, losing control of the State Senate and suffering big losses in the Assembly, while Gov. Jim Doyle was re-elected handily.

This does not seem like the time to be making threats and forcing an impasse.

US Attorney Steven Biskupic tried to squeeze Georgia Thompson, the state employee who was falsely convicted, offering her leniency in exchange for testimony against higher-ups in the administration of Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle.

Biskupic has insisted the case was not politically motivated.

Isthmus has details in a copyrighted story today.

Here's my post on DailyKos.

UPDATE: WashPost reports 26 US Attorneys were on the dismissal list at some point. Biskupic was on the very first. List.